


inferno

by mahalidael



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Bible Quotes, Buried Alive, But Mostly In The Chapter Titles, Child Abuse, Christianity, Claustrophobia, Cults, Everyone Needs A Hug, Existential Crisis, Face Punching, Friends to Lovers, Ghosts, Hurt Leo, Hurt Nico di Angelo, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Legal Drama, Leo Needs a Hug, M/M, Mystery, Not Canon Compliant - The Burning Maze (Trials of Apollo), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Pining, Priests Are Bad News, Religious Conflict, Religious Fanaticism, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Slow Burn, Starvation, Teen Pregnancy, Terrorism, The Burning Maze (Trials of Apollo) Spoilers, Theorize Responsibly, Torture, Unhealthy Relationships, Worldbuilding, an evangelist tries to give nico a pocket bible and nico laughs, its back and here to bite everyone in the ass, remember that part of the lightning thief where percy asks if god exists?, try to find a canon character that isn't hurt in the course of this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2019-06-05 13:35:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 72,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15171827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahalidael/pseuds/mahalidael
Summary: "Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God.""Well, now," Chiron said. "God - capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."





	1. The Prodigal Son

Nico tugged uncomfortably at the edge of his collar. He was up to his eyes in people, body heat, and fancy perfume.

“ _You’ll have fun,” my ass._

He was wavering near a cloth-covered table of fancy little foods with that French name he couldn’t remember, sweat plastering his bangs to his face.

He swallowed as someone bumped into him again. He shouldn’t have come. Granted, Jason had invited him, and it would be rude to turn him down, but all night he’d been hanging out with Piper. And, granted, her dad had paid for the ticket, but the feeling of being alone among strangers was stifling.

Nico had his hair slicked out of his eyes with gel. He’d found himself some black slacks, a pressed shirt and a vest, but he still felt woefully underdressed. The cacophony of the ball’s ambience. The sweat. The colors. The damn smell.

A hard, slender hand clapped Nico’s shoulder, doubtlessly smearing something on his shirt.

“Hey, Olive Garden, you feeling alright?”

Leo’s broad grin greeted him. Nico scoffed quietly. “‘Olive Garden?’”

Leo shrugged. “I couldn’t think of a better one. Seriously, though, are you okay?”

“No, I’m fine. Crowds just get to me.” Leo offered a napkin, which Nico used to dab at the sweat running down his face. “Thanks.”

“No problem. I don’t take issue with crowds, but _rich_ crowds… hoo boy.” Leo laughed humorlessly.

Nico passed Leo a glass of punch. The red stuff, not that fancy coconut bullshit everyone else had. “I saw a woman with a mink coat. Real mink, with the head still on it. What does she think she’s doing? It’s the middle of June. Piper’s gonna flip her shit if she sees that.”

“Gods. One of my foster parents used to take me to these things. They’re just as bad as I remember.” An odd look crossed Leo’s face. He put it to bed quickly. “Uh… Jason and Piper are busy doing couple stuff. You want to hang with me for a while?”

Nico personally didn’t witness it, but he’d heard. Calypso left for the Hunters of Artemis — she chose the world over him, an understandable choice, Leo asserted whenever the topic came up. Nico sometimes came into Bunker 9 and bothered him just to alleviate some loneliness for all involved.

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice.”

Nico and Leo spent a good hour trying to shove as much tiny food in their pockets as possible. (The word was hors d’oeuvres, though Leo pronounced it “horse divorce,” which didn’t seem right.) It was a nice time, up until Jason stepped away to check on Nico.

“Hey, Nico! Having a good time?” Jason said, smiling, flushed. Nico had looked for fancy alcohol and couldn’t find any, but the McLeans must have hooked Jason up.

Nico was getting tired, while Jason looked like he was just getting started. It made Nico feel worse all of a sudden, like he wasn’t having enough fun. He patted his pocketful of tiny eclairs. “You could say that.”

Jason grinned, flashed the “OK” sign, and walked off while drinking what he knew wasn’t soda.

Nico tried to keep going with Leo, but eventually the guilty thoughts started getting to his head.

“I’m trying to get some fancy shrimp for Harley, but it’s so close to the dance floor that people just stare at me. Can you use, like, Underworld magic to sneak over there…?” Leo asked, trailing off. “What, am I too hot for you?”

“What? What?” Nico’s throat was too tight.

“You’re sweating.”

“Ugh, it’s just… anxiety getting to me. Go on ahead, I need a second,” Nico muttered, stumbling into the bathroom.

He sighed. The bathroom was blank white, way bigger than necessary, and thanks gods, cool.

A year after leaving Tartarus, Nico still looked terrible. His skin had gotten pinker and his cheeks were fuller but his eyes were dead-looking. The eyes of a corpse.

His hands shook badly, gripping the edge of the marble counter. Such things should be trivial. He should be having fun.

Splash splash splash.

Not getting any better.

Maybe it was time to throw in the towel, it was almost midnight.

He stepped out to tell Leo he was leaving — and ran into someone.

Nico reeled back. “Oh, I’m sorry—”

The boy he ran into blinked. “Are you okay, sir?”

Nico sighed, but not too hard, because if he exhaled too hard his lungs might’ve turned inside out. “I just need air.”

He went back to the counter and stood there for a good minute before turning back to the boy. “…What?” the boy said.

“Are you going to use the bathroom?”

The boy started. He seemed to remember where he was suddenly. Now that he looked, Nico realized he was wearing all white, and his head appeared to float against the bathroom wall. Nico was the only speck of black in the room. He felt like a fly in a glass of milk. “Oh! Oh, I’m waiting for someone.”

“I’m the only person in here.”

“You are?” The boy opened each bathroom stall. “Ah. You are.” He shifted anxiously, the papers in his hand crinkling. “…Do you need help?”

“I’m okay.”

“Not that kind of help. …Hold on.” The boy rummaged in his coat, pulling out a small orange rectangle. He gave it to Nico.

Nico squinted. _NEW TESTAMENT._

The boy smiled earnestly. “Would you like to build a personal relationship with Jesus?”

Oh.

Nico tried not to crack up.

_Don’t be an asshole, Nico. He’s doing his best._

“Um… I’m sorry, you… ha!” He disguised his laughter as a cough. “I’m already Catholic.”

That was a lie, but he figured it would get the kid off his back. He didn’t need a pocket Bible to tell him he was going to hell, he’d already been.

The boy looked surprised, but he bought it. “Huh. You look like a Satanist.”

“I get that a lot. I’ll tell you what.” Nico fished a napkin-wrapped mini éclair out of his pocket. “Have this. Thanks for making my night.”

The boy took the éclair and stared at it. It seemed to remind him of something. “Uh… I lost my father earlier. We’re supposed to stay together; could you help me… find him?” he said quietly, tucking the éclair into his pocket.

Nico shrugged. He was feeling a lot better. “Okay.”

The boy took him by the arm. “He’s tall and has a beard,” he explained, walking into the ballroom.

Nico glanced at the boy. He was painfully thin, with wispy red hair. “Is he a redhead?”

“Oh, no, I’m adopted.”

Nico stood on his tiptoes to see over the crowd. “How tall are we talking here?” He turned to get an answer, but the boy was gone.

Nico went back into the crowd. Eventually he found Leo.

Leo was sitting at a round table, empty but for himself and a glass of red punch he was nursing morosely. “Hey,” he said as Nico sat down next to him. “I thought you left.”

Nico fixed Leo’s tie, having somehow come undone. “Me? Leaving unannounced? Unthinkable.”

Leo snorted. “Seriously, though. I was having fun earlier, but now it’s just getting old.” He looked pointedly at a couple making out on the ballroom floor, soggy with champagne. “If you’re leaving early, take me with you.”

“Not yet. I was helping some kid find his dad.”

“Where’s the kid?”

“I lost him too. You’re taller. Tell me if you see anything.”

“I can do you one better.” Leo climbed up on his chair. He shielded his eyes in a gesture of mock concentration. “What do they look like?”

“The dad’s tall and has a beard.”

“So’s Piper’s dad. Tell me something else.”

“The kid is a redhead. Weedy looking.”

Leo laughed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were talking about…” He blinked, like he was trying to bring something into focus. “About…”

Nico wanted to ask why Leo was stammering, but that was before the boy popped back into his periphery.

“Hey! It’s okay, I found my father!” The boy looked at Leo, then Nico, then Leo. “Oh my gosh! I know you!” he cried.

Leo paled and put a finger to his lips.

Behind the boy, a man emerged from the crowd. Indeed, he was tall, so much so that the top of his head would be visible from the other side of the room. And he did have a beard. It reminded Nico of Chiron’s beard. But above his beard, Chiron had kind eyes. This man’s eyes held no kindness.

“Son, I told you not to run off,” he said in a deep, booming voice. His eyes went to Nico. “I’m sorry, Ezra’s always been very jumpy…” He looked up. His eyebrows rose. “Leo?”

Nico looked up too, but his gaze stopped at Leo’s shaking knees, and he quickly helped him down from the chair.

The boy, Ezra, wasn’t fazed. “It’s just like you said! Leo’s come back to us!”

Leo looked like he was going to vomit. “Um. Um.”

The man smiled, like a cat playing with a mouse. “What? No ‘hello father?’”

Leo gulped and squeezed Nico’s hand. “H-hello, Father Abraham.”

Father Abraham’s face settled in a way one might call “placid.” “We have a lot to talk about, Leo. I’d like to know what you’re up to, since it’s clearly more important than coming home. And who’s this young man?” he said, pointing at Nico. Specifically, at the hand interlocked with Leo’s. “I hope you’re not giving into temptation.”

“I… I… I…”

Leo’ hand warmed dangerously.

Nico pulled him away from Abraham. “I’m sure he’d love to talk, but he’s on some new medicine. It’s not agreeing with the food.”

Abraham frowned. “Oh. They’re putting you on… poison. This is exactly what I was afraid of, son,” he said, placing a hand on Leo’s shoulder.

Nico swatted Abraham’s hand away. “No offense, Father, but he’s not your son.”

Abraham nodded sagely. “Of course. Though,” he added as Nico rushed away, “we’re all children of God in the end. All of us.”

Leo was hyperventilating, and Nico was trying to keep him from combusting in the middle of the crowd. A few people yelped when his bare arms brushed against theirs. Nico himself couldn’t touch him for too long. His skin was like a hot sidewalk.

Finally, they burst into the bathroom. Nico ran the tap and thrust Leo’s hand under the stream. He seemed to calm, fire hazard averted.

Leo’s hair was smoldering. Nico cupped some water in his hands, but when he tried to put it out, Leo screamed. “No! Not there!”

Nico jumped back. “Okay. Okay, I’m putting it back.”

Leo hunched over the sink silently.

“Are you going to throw up—?”

Leo covered his eyes and made a choked noise.

Oh. “Leo?”

“Take me home.” He sounded as if he was being strangled.

“Home?”

“Camp. Anywhere. Just… I can’t let him find me…” Leo moved to hug himself around the waist. Tears were rolling down his cheeks but didn’t roll far before boiling away into steam.

Normally, Nico would shadow travel in a heartbeat, but… “Leo, is the rest of you as hot as your face is?”

Leo looked up. “What?”

“Temperature, Leo.”

“I can’t tell.” He turned on the tap and ran more icy water over his hands. “Is this okay?” he said, holding out his palms.

Nico poked him. “It’s better. Let’s go.”

Leo was shadowed traveled into the bathroom in Cabin 13 and sat on the floor.

Nico left him alone for as long as he could before he finally asked: “Why the bathroom?”

“The floor is tile so I can’t burn it.”

“That’s very thoughtful, but I need to pee.”

“Oh.” Leo slinked out of the bathroom and hid in the corner. Nico felt terrible, but what could he do? This was a whole new frontier for him. Sure, campers sometimes asked him to teleport them away, but those incidents were often caused by otherwise harmless triggers. The sight of blood. Loud cracking sounds. Overstimulation.

This, though.

First, Nico had never seen Leo have a panic attack before. At this point, he’d seen almost everyone have a panic attack. Two wars over five years did that to people.

Second, he had a feeling that this wasn’t a harmless trigger. Somehow, Abraham’s presence was a very real danger to Leo. Something just didn’t sit right with that encounter.

When Nico came out, Leo was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Feeling better?” he asked.

Leo shrugged.

Nico was quiet. It felt weird, asking the usual questions, because it was Leo this time. “How do you feel?”

“Um…” He glanced at the floor. “Kind of tired. Guess you can say I… _burned myself out._ ” He laughed nervously.

“You can sleep here. I just have some questions. You don’t have to answer but do me a favor and listen.”

Leo nodded.

“Who’s Abraham?”

He flinched. “An old foster parent.”

Nico had thought as much. “Do you think he’s looking for you?”

“He _is_ looking for me. I ran away.” Leo looked up, fear in his eyes. “Oh, god, what if he finds me?”

“Leo, he won’t find you. He can’t. A mortal won’t be able to get through the barrier. You’ll be okay.” Nico patted the unoccupied bed. "Come on. It's fine."

Leo looked at the bed, googly-eyed. "Wait, you really sleep in that?!"

Cabin 13’s beds were coffin-shaped. This unsettled the heck out of people, Nico included, because he hadn’t put those in with the intent of sleeping in them. After the Titan War, he wasn’t sure where he’d go, but it wasn’t Camp Half-Blood. Funny how things change.

In fact, the whole cabin felt like an oven during the day. It was comfortable at night, but when Nico was trying to hide from nosy campers it was a pain in the ass. A black paint job is fine for an offering to Hades. For a long-term residence, not so much.

“Yeah -- nobody wants to sleep in the coffin,” Nico admitted. Not even Will. "Come on. I'll get you a blanket."

* * *

_Rain was pounding the roof of the compound. Thunder screamed, and the ocean roared in response. In a couple of years, Leo would say this was the sound of Zeus and Poseidon arguing. But right now he was afraid to say anything, much less about a pagan god._

_No. Leo wasn’t here to blaspheme. He was here to fix the printer._

_There was an office in the church, over-cooled and crowded with terrible props from old Christmas and Easter plays, and paperwork, and the printer’s mangled output was sitting on the top, and though Leo didn’t try reading it at the moment he knew what it was._

_Ezra was shifting from foot to foot. Apparently Abraham adopted kids ages zero to eighteen, and Ezra was a case of zero. Leo didn’t blame him for being like that. Horribly frustrating as it was. “So, it’s always printed a little funny, but right now it’s all blurry and blocky. So the tracts look really bad.”_

_Leo opened the printer’s top. “What do you mean, ‘funny?’”_

_“Crooked.”_

_Leo cracked the printer open, but not without issue. He had to angle his body in a way that his wounds didn’t agree with. “I’ll fix it in five minutes. Maybe three.”_

_Ezra pushed his hair back. His hair was getting long. Apparently he had some issue with scissors that made haircuts difficult. “Are you sure? Because it looks like you just broke it in half.”_

_“Haha. Yeah, I did.” Leo looked at Ezra’s panicked face and added, “I can put it back when I’m done.”_

_Leo fixed the printer head, tuned up the rest of the decade-old machine, and closed it with staples. “Try it now.”_

_Ezra went back to the office computer and printed the tract again. It came out perfectly. He beamed. “Thank you, Leo!” he said, patting Leo on the back. “I don’t know what I’d do without you!”_

_Leo winced sharply. “No problem.”_

_Ezra withdrew his hand. “Oh, no! I forgot. Does that still hurt?”_

_“It’s, um…” He ground his teeth. “I’m okay.”_

_“No, no. Let me get some Motrin for you.” Real painkillers were hard to get, given Abraham’s policy on medicine. Motrin barely took the edge off of menstrual cramps, so he heard._

_Nevertheless, Leo didn’t argue about it. Ezra rummaged in his pants pocket and took out a tic-tac box. He ate those mints all the time to curb his appetite, but he had a separate box for smuggling pain pills. Sometimes Leo wanted to snatch that stupid box out of his hand and swallow all of them at once. Ezra never had more than three at a time, though. He shook them all out and gave them to Leo._

_Leo took them. “Ugh.”_

_“Are you okay?” Ezra seemed genuinely concerned. Leo thought about punching him for a split second._

_“No.” He rubbed his wrists. “Abraham tried exorcising me again. I don’t know_ what _he’s trying to do other than set another bed on fire. Awful waste of beds, if you ask me.” A bitter attempt at humor was fired off and fell flat._

_“Oh. Well, these things take time. A demon that’s really deep in there could take years to remove.”_

_Leo scoffed. “I can’t believe this.”_

_“Huh? What?”_

_“You seriously agree with him? He almost killed me the other day.”_

_Ezra was legitimately taken aback. A part of Leo knew that it was unfair to take his anger out on this kid, but nothing about this was fair, and he was tired of dealing with some redheaded cog in a machine. “I don’t agree with his methods, exactly, but I really think you have some problems.”_

_“So you think I’m a demon, too?”_

_“I didn’t say that.”_

_“But you think so.”_

_Ezra opened his mouth and closed it into a thin line._

_There was a knock on the door. “Ezra! It’s time for dinner!”_

_They both froze. Abraham’s knocking was just a habit; they couldn’t stop him from coming in and doing whatever in God’s holy name he wanted._

_Leo’s back was to the door, and a firm hand locked on his shoulder. He began to sweat despite the temperature. “Ezra, you go on ahead. Leo is still fasting.”_

_Leo’s face said,_ Please don’t leave.

_Abraham said, “Ezra?”_

_Ezra was stuck. But only for a moment._

_Whatever guilt Leo had stirred up settled fast. Ezra only gave him a passing, nervous glance as he walked out the door._

_Leo hated Ezra because he was afraid of God, Leo hated God because He gave Abraham an excuse for his actions, and Leo hated himself because at this point, he was pretty sure God hated him too._

_And Leo was alone with Abraham._

* * *

He woke up in a cold sweat, but the nightmare wasn’t over yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here's something I've been wanting to write for a while.
> 
> This plot piggybacks a little bit on existing "Leo was abused by his foster parents" fics, but only at first. It's a springboard for things to come.
> 
> Mostly, this was inspired by a viewing of Jesus Camp. But it also elaborates on stuff like Percy asking about God in The Lightning Thief. In the same book a Christian televangelist dies and goes to Tartarus, and that's about it on the Christianity discussion, because Rick can't talk about it any more without getting controversial.
> 
> Luckily, this is fanfiction, so we're not bound by the same rules.
> 
> A note for Christians reading this: this will either be very interesting or very uncomfortable for you.
> 
> Another note: if I'm proud of nothing else, it's the fic title. "Inferno" can be interpreted as either a reference to Leo's fire powers, or to the Divine Comedy, one of the most famous works of Christian literature. Specifically, "Inferno" refers to the part where the Italian guy goes to hell. Yep.


	2. Paradise, Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo gets a rude awakening.

“Abraham?”

“Teresa. Sorry to bother you this late.”

“I’ll say; it’s three in the morning. What’s possessed you?”

“A fiery little demon. Now, I need some legal advice—if a child in one’s rightful custody goes missing and reappears, say, a few years later in someone else’s care, does any court action have to take place, or can I just call the police?”

“…I would think the latter, but why?”

“You keep all the foster records, don’t you?”

* * *

Leo was hyperventilating on the floor and he didn’t know why.

He was huddled up in the corner between the wall and the side of the bed. He had a vague awareness that he was in Cabin 13, that he was safe, but it was hard to stay grounded. He had to think of anything else.  _Happy place, robot puppies, summertime, warm air._ Leo rubbed his palms on the carpet and opened his eyes. One black carpet under him, one black wall in front of him, one coffin behind him. Yeah, this was definitely Nico’s cabin.

One Nico in front, crouching down, suddenly. “Are you okay?”

Leo looked up from his hands. He couldn't sit on the floor forever, could he? “What happened?”

“You fell out of bed. I went to check on you and you were like this.” Nico’s face was scrunched up with worry. “Bad dream?”

There was an implicit request there. For half-bloods, ominous dreams were rarely just dreams. Plus, he’d slept in a coffin last night. If he were in school, this would be in his English homework.  _Question 3: What does the coffin represent? “The coffin is a hamfisted metaphor for Leo's incoming death by heart attack,”_ he’d write.

Leo rolled his shoulders back. “Pretty bad.”

“You want to tell me?”

Clamming up was tempting. But he remembered some advice Annabeth had given him: bad communication was the leading cause of death in ancient Greece. “It wasn't a dream. It was a memory.” Leo wiped away sweat. He was beginning to cool to a comfortable temperature. “I guess running into... ol’ Father Abe dredged something up.”

Or it’s an omen, was the unspoken statement.

Leo ignored that. “What time is it?”

Nico looked at the wall. “Too early to get up. Too late to go back to bed.”

“There’s no windows in here, how the hell did you do that?”

“Magic.”

Leo sighed and leaned back further, bending backwards so his head was on the bed. “Guess I can’t just sit here until sunrise.” He stared at the ceiling. It shined purple-black. “I’m going to Bunker 9. Don’t wait up.”

Nico opened his mouth, as if to say something, but Leo closed the door before he could do so.

* * *

Nico spent all his free time in the infirmary. Usually he split the difference between that and the bunker, but what would he say when he did? Well, what could he say.

He wondered if Leo was okay. He didn’t go looking for him, but he _did_ wonder, and that showed character. Probably.

The infirmary was very stuffy and chaotic and hard to wrap one’s head around. It was perfect for somebody who had too many thoughts swirling around. Worrying, fearful thoughts. And sometimes, if he got lucky, he’d get to stand in a spot near the window, and there would be a warm sunbeam.

He slid into a different headspace here. The kids still weren’t used to his presence and flinched away when he was nearby. Maybe they never would get used to him. But y’know, even if they never stopped thinking he was a freak, they’d eventually get tired of flinching.

At Camp Half-Blood, you get some interesting injuries. You gotta love a summer camp with swords, spears, and a lava pit. There was that time with the knife that got so close to that kid’s heart it wobbled with every heartbeat. There was the thing with the twenty-foot long tapeworm. The penis bottle incident.

And yet nobody trusted him. A whole year of bullshit, and nobody trusted him!

Except Will. Maybe.

That afternoon, he had mostly normal activity. The usual inhaler refills, stab wounds, convection burns.

Then there were three kids. They were playing basketball when a tree fell on the court. A couple of broken limbs (ha) and cuts and scrapes. Jason popped in, wearing dark glasses. “Hey,” Nico said. He was carefully stitching a cut behind one kid’s ear, holding the ear in place with tweezers. “Did you have a good night?”

“It was a good night. Not as good of a morning. I think I’m dying,” he sighed, holding his hands over his ears.

A basketball passed through the space between them. The kid Nico was sewing up caught it. “No basketball in the infirmary!” Will snapped. He grabbed the ball and spirited it to a closet before continuing to set a broken leg.

The kid blew a raspberry.

Nico glared at the kid. “He’s right.”

“What are you going to do? Kill me?” he taunted.

Nico’s eye twitched. He ignored him.

“What happened with you and Leo?” Jason continued. “You two just vanished around midnight. If it weren’t for Piper’s knife showing us you went home, we would’ve flipped out and thought a monster got you. At least _warn_ us.”

Nico paused. “What did Katropis show you, exactly?”

“You and Leo asleep in Cabin 13.”

Another basketball whizzed past them. “Hey!” Will shouted. “Where are you getting those?”

“From YOUR MOM!” one of them said.

“Shut up, at least my mom talks to me.” That was cold, even for Will, who could make like Canada at times. “I better not see any more of these, or I’m finding your ball stash and popping every single one.”

The kids jeered. “I bet you do a lot of things to balls in your free time.”

Nico clenched his jaw. Jason glared disapprovingly at the kid next to him, making him wither. Nico shook his head. “If you need something for the hangover, we keep Advil in the back.”

“Thanks Nico,” Jason said. “And, uh, one more thing?”

“Yeah?”

“Is Leo… okay?” Jason said. He was squinting in the light of the window, but it didn’t hamper his look of concern at all. “He took off last night and now he’s hiding in the bunker. Did something happen?”

Nico hesitated. He didn’t know the details with Abraham, but a reaction like Leo’s implied nothing good. “You’ll have to ask him about that.”

Jason’s scrunched-up expression drooped sadly, almost but not quite relaxing his hangover squint. “I was afraid of that. Most days I have to pretend _I’m_ the one with the problem to get him to admit anything.”

There was a deep anxiety in his eyes that made Nico wonder how he’d figured that out. That wasn’t the expression of a man who’d learned this gradually.

“…Advil’s in the back,” Nico repeated.

“What?”

“Hangover. You have a hangover. I have painkillers.”

“Right, right,” Jason said. He shook his head, as if to loosen something that was too tightly wound. “Nice talking to you.”

Jason crossed the room so he was standing behind Nico.

And then it happened.

A kid hit Nico in the face with the basketball. He reeled back and landed on his ass. His arm jerked backwards, taking the cut ear with it, where it landed on the floor like a sad little pepperoni slice.

“Oh my gods!” The ear kid screamed, clutching his bloody, one-eared head. “ _Oh my gods!_ ”

“What?” said Jason as he slipped on the ear, hitting his head on the rail of a cot, knocking him unconscious.

Yep.

Nico couldn’t believe it either.

By the end of the day, Jason was laid up in a cot with an ice pack and the kid’s ear was dusted off and back on his head. It was only a little squashed, but he acted like Nico had cast a hex on the basketball in midair, redirecting it towards himself and causing a hot thirty minutes of chaos.

It made people look at him in a way (a split second where he could see them staring before they nervously turned away, like his gaze alone could kill them) that made Nico feel like he’d shot up with ice water.

At dinner, Nico went to apologize to Jason. Often, he felt like he’d done so much wrong he needed to apologize for things that weren’t really his fault, like this thing. Jason could’ve ripped _Nico’s_ ear off, and Nico would still apologize to him.

He was walking to Jason, and he was about six feet away when Jason shivered, unnerved, sparks flying off his shoulders.

Nico stopped in his tracks. Jason glanced back, at first fearful, but then guilty.

He turned around and went back to the Apollo table, where Will’s brothers and sisters ogled him, but at least they didn’t pity him.

After dinner, his anxiety rose to a level over his nose, and he went to the bunker.

Leo was perched on a stool, tinkering with something that looked like a power tool or one of those shoe measuring things. He smiled, a half-moon, not looking up at Nico but hearing the door creak open and his soft footsteps. “You just couldn’t get enough, could you?”

“You aren’t getting enough, either.”

“Oh-ho, is that a threat or an invitation?”

“I meant food. You aren’t getting enough _food._ ” Leo finally looked up. Nico frowned down at him, holding a Tupperware container of spaghetti. He didn’t eat at Hephaestus’s table, so he wasn’t sure what Leo liked. Spaghetti was a full meal, right? It had carbs, at least. “I didn’t see you at meals all day. Actually—I didn’t see you all day. Period.”

The corners of Leo’s mouth fell at the pace of a frosted cupcake stuck to a glass door. Slowly, hesitantly, before hitting rock bottom. “Um… yeah. Can I have that?” he said, putting down his doodad.

Nico would’ve taken one of the magic plates, but they kept teleporting back to the dining pavilion when he tried. In his frenzy to steal food, he had neglected to bring any forks. Or baby wipes. Jesus. Leo’s hands were black with grease. Nico gave him the food and nodded at Leo’s toolbelt. “Does that have silverware in it? Can a fork be considered a tool?”

“I don’t know,” Leo muttered. He reached in. Sure enough, a dainty fork came out of the belt. “Huh. Could just be _my_ definition of ‘tool.’ I never really thought about how that works.”

He set the container on his knee, removed the lid with his left hand and held the fork in his right. The container wobbled perilously. Nico took the lid. “You better hold onto that food. I went to a lot of trouble to make sure you eat.”

“And I tip my hat to you, good sir. …You know, I used to know somebody who thought language was a big waste of time. Reckoned everything could be summed up in one or two words. Randy—his name. Everything was a ‘tool’ to him. He’d call across the room for a ‘tool’ and I wouldn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. He could be talking about a spatula or a screwdriver or a fork. And Randy would never tell me which one! I’d say ‘what the fuck are you talking about’ and he’d say ‘a tool’ and we’d go back and forth until he finally got up and it turns out the ‘tool’ is a hole punch. I fucking hated that guy. That’s a massive oversimplification of speech—of _people_ , really. We have so many different tools for different things that evolved over the years that just calling everything a tool kind of cheapens it. But I guess his thinking dug into me until it affects the magic in my tool belt. Asshole Randy’s terrible philosophy actually helps me every now and then. I still _hate_ it, obviously, but even when I hate it, I’m thinking about it. I can’t choose what I think about.”

Leo’s rambling lulled as he twirled spaghetti around his fork, stopped eating, and began staring at it blankly. Nico was still holding the Tupperware lid for a lack of any clear space to put it down.

“This isn’t really about tools, is it?” Nico said.

“Ugh, no. But I really hoped it would end up being about tools after all,” Leo grumbled.

“Are you okay?”

“ _Yes,_ ” he insisted.

Nico clenched his jaw, trying to remember Jason’s advice. _I pretend to be the one with the problem._ “Okay. I don’t believe you, but okay.”

Leo moved the spaghetti-wrapped fork around the container. It hit each side with a quiet, wet thump.

“…Jason got another concussion today,” Nico said.

“What happened?”

“Punk kids throwing a basketball.”

“Hit him square in the forehead?”

“No, he slipped on the ear I accidentally severed. …Yes, really. People won’t quit talking about it. It’s starting to get on my nerves.” He paused and looked at Leo. Leo was smiling, but into his spaghetti. “Well, it’s been getting on my nerves for a while now. But, uh… I deal with it my own way.”

Leo scoffed. “The old ‘picture everybody naked’ shtick?”

Nico wasn’t used to being to the center of the conversation. “No. I—when I was ten, I ran away from camp and hung out with this ghost, Minos. I won’t go into detail, but he spent a long time hyping me up, making me angry. He wanted me to kill somebody for him. I almost did it. I was young and stupid, and he seemed convincing.”

“But…?” Leo, very slightly, was looking Nico in the eye.

“But every time he almost won me over—after every other reason to say ‘no’ had fallen through, and I was beginning to think he was right after all—without fail, we’d walk past a black person. And he’d say something racist.”

Leo coughed. “Holy shit, dude.”

“I know. He’d start rambling about ‘how lazy the Africans are’ and I’d say to myself, ‘oh no, I almost listened to this guy.’ And I’d end up thinking, ‘thank gods he’s racist.’”

Nico paused. “Wow,” Leo said.

“And that’s an awful thing to think, but it was a good red flag. Something to keep me from falling into a trap. I still have moments like that. I hear someone talking about me and I think that they’re right. Then I realize that the person talking is, I don’t know, that guy who sells pictures of his feet on the internet.”

“ _Greg the foot guy?!_ Does he really do that?”

“Yes he does.”

Leo looked both amused and horrified. “Wait—”

“I just _know_ stuff, okay? The point is, nobody’s infallible, and chances are they have some horrible flaw that helps you ignore them.” Granted, Nico didn’t have dirt on _every single person in camp,_ and a lot of them were good people. Great people. “If some kid is dumb enough to throw a basketball in a busy infirmary, I don’t need to listen to any advice they’ve got to offer.”

They were quiet.

Leo finished his spaghetti.

“I’m sorry you had to go to this trouble. Seeing Abraham really fucked me up. I’m thinking of things I haven’t considered since I was fourteen. Actually—” Leo swiveled on his seat. “—are you Catholic?”

“No.”

“But you used to be, weren’t you?” Nico must have made a face that tipped off the answer. “Yeah, you were. You’re Italian. You were probably Catholic. I was Catholic once. Abraham wasn’t… isn’t. He’s evangelical or Pentecostal or one of those other crazy options.”

“…”

Leo inhaled deeply. “I don’t know. He was crazy either way. Kept calling me possessed. Sometimes I believed it. The things I saw as a kid—Tia Callida, the fireplace… Gaea. If I didn’t know better, I could chalk it up to demons.”

Nico had no idea what Leo was talking about, but he felt stupid just sitting there. “But you know better. Now you know why that stuff happened. It sucks that it happened, but you know it wasn’t demons.”

Leo suddenly pounded his hand on the workbench.

“Yeah, _I know now,_ okay! That’s why I’m pissed!”

Leo looked at his hand. He must have brought his palm down on something sharp, because blood trickled from it down his arm. Nico moved to help, but he waved him off. “It’s fine. I’m fine. …The spaghetti was great. I forgot to thank you.”

When Nico was ten, the first time he’d come to camp, he’d asked Percy about God. Percy had said something along the lines of _I don’t know, Chiron won’t talk about it. Now go bite someone else’s ankles._ He never got around to asking Chiron, but he’d probably get brushed off if he did.

“What do you mean?”

Leo looked up. A little sauce was at the corner of his mouth. “What?”

“What’s missing?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Leo said, looking intensely worried about it.

Nico took the injured hand. Leo balled it into a fist, so he couldn’t see. “At least let me look, Leo. This bench is covered in rusty metal.”

Nico gently peeled Leo’s fingers back. Index, pinkie, middle, ring, thumb. The array of tools and loose metal on the bench had cut his palm deeply. Leo whistled in faux surprise. “Would you look at that. Right in the middle.”

“Gods, Leo, this isn’t a joke. I’m trying to help you here.” Nico always had a little ambrosia on him, even in relatively safe situations. He still wanted to be cautious. Nico looked over at a deep sink basin across the bunker, something he imagined was rarely used. “Come over here.”

Nico took him to the sink. Leo’s wrist was a jumble of friendship bracelets, rubber wristbands, and paracord braids, and they were all covered in blood.

Nico pawed at the tangled mass, and Leo offered no support. “What are you doing?” Nico said.

“Maybe I like these bracelets, okay?”

“Well, wash them. They’re gross now.”

Nico scraped it away and gave pause. Leo had scars.

They were old. They were brown. There were no distinct lines, so they weren’t self-harm. They were burn scars, something seemingly impossible for Leo to have until Nico noticed that they went all the way around his wrist in a perfect circle.

It was friction burn, like you get from a rope.

“Leo—?”

“Don’t.”

* * *

Later, Leo was woken up at way too fucking early o’clock and told to come to the camp border.

* * *

In the morning, Nico consulted Annabeth.

Annabeth wasn’t obligated to stay at camp, but in the summer she returned as a counselor. If anyone could help in this situation, it would be her.

Nico had no excuse to even be near the Athena table, but he pulled her aside anyway. “Can we talk?” he said. (The Hephaestus table was right next to Athena, and Leo wasn’t there.) “I need your opinion on something.”

They walked down a dirt trail that would weave through the campground and eventually approach the border. There was a cold fog, heavy like trying to bite through a wool blanket and thick enough to cut with a knife. Nico could barely see Annabeth standing paces away. Her hair was puffed up in the humidity. Even further away, campers were silhouettes of themselves.

Annabeth peered down at him curiously. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m worried about someone at camp.”

Nico told her what he’d put together, without naming Leo. He explained the incident with Abraham, the religious stuff, the scars.

Annabeth’s brow was creased when he finished. “…Jeez.” She was still trying to choose her words. Nico didn’t blame her. What _could_ you say?

“Even though he never _said_ he was abused, I’m worried,” he said. “Now that his foster parent knows he’s in New York, he could get hurt.” _Either by Abraham’s hand, or his own._

“You need to tell Chiron. He needs to know who that preacher is so he can be kept away from camp.”

“I know I do. I just wanted to run it by you.”

Annabeth was quiet. Her gray eyes were stony, gazing into the woods. They’d almost come to the end of the path, and the vague shadow of Thalia’s tree stood in the distance, Golden Fleece flapping flaccidly in the wet wind. Annabeth muttered something about using Jason as a dehumidifier. “Does your friend know that you’re discussing this with me?”

Nico frowned. “…I could’ve asked him if he needed help, but he’d say ‘no.’ He’s like that.”

There was a look in her eyes that made him think she knew who he was talking about. But if she did, she didn’t bring it up.

“What do you think?” he said.

“Huh?”

“About the preacher. He thought that kid was possessed. And I guess that’s not unreasonable, given what half-bloods are like.” Nico thought of times Leo had scared him. He pulled technology advanced enough to look like magic out of his ass, handled red-hot metal with no problems, and conjured fire out of the air.

If Nico had encountered Leo as a child in Italy, maybe he’d mistake him for a demon too.

Annabeth’s ponytail had pinwheeled into chaos, and she fixed it, the hair elastic between her teeth as she gathered it up. “I’ seen somethin’ like that,” she mumbled.

“What?”

“Hold.” Annabeth put her hair up. “About five years ago, Percy, Grover and I snuck into the Underworld. On our way in, we saw some greasy televangelist getting hauled into the Fields of Punishment. Percy asked why he was there if he believed in a different hell. Grover lobbed the theory that he was seeing something else, but we had other things to worry about at the time. Makes you wonder.”

“Yeah. My family was Catholic, actually. I’m not sure how.”

“Same, sort of. My stepmom’s from a religious family. She got my half-brothers baptized and everything. Wanted me to get baptized too, but I thought it was pointless. I’m the daughter of a pagan goddess—if I didn’t know better, I’d assume I’m allergic to holy water.”

Nico snorted. He had vague memories, blurred by the Lethe, of going to Mass. It occurred to him how ridiculous it was. He wondered why his mother kept doing that—did she really hold onto her faith, or was she trying to keep up appearances? In Italy, you either went to Mass or there was something wrong with you.

The arch of the entrance approached. “Here’s the end of the line,” Nico said. “We should get back. I’ll talk to Chiron—”

“Is something out there?” Annabeth said, squinting at the horizon.

Actually, yes.

Nico couldn’t see where they were coming from, but there were red and blue lights coming from beyond the fog. He saw the shape of Chiron in his magic wheelchair, and Mr. D drinking his Diet Coke, both speaking to a blurry third figure.

Oh gods. Leo wasn’t at breakfast.

Nico darted through the entrance, Annabeth yelling at him to wait.

The scene came into focus.

There were two cars parked outside Camp Half-Blood. One was a police car. The other was an ugly church bus. There were a few policemen filling out reports. Chiron and Mr. D were arguing with an officer and a woman in a suit who was waving a slip of paper.

Nico ran up to Chiron, whose face was ashen and pulled tight. “What’s going on here?” he cried.

Mr. D responded for him, looking intensely irritated. “Little Miss Litigation here says we took in a camper illegally.”

The woman, a woman wearing a business suit and a hard expression, sniffed. “Leo disappeared from our home two years ago. Next thing I know, my husband’s telling me he’s in the woods in Long Island. Did you _know_ that he wasn’t here with our permission? Did you even ask?”

“Ma’am, please calm down,” Chiron said. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

“No disrespect, but I’ve been missing a child for years, and you’re a pair of shady old men running an unlicensed day camp. There is no ‘we’ in this conversation,” the woman insisted.

Nico gritted his teeth. “Who _are_ you?”

“Can we please wrap this up?” she continued, ignoring Nico. “Leo must be tired from all this deliberating. I want to take him home.”

Nico looked at the police car. Leo was in the backseat. Fuzzy and wide-eyed. Nico bolted across the lawn, but was caught by the collar. “Hey! Don’t make this worse!” Mr. D snapped, acidic soda on his breath.

Annabeth rushed in. Mr. D pushed Nico into her arms. She held onto him, keeping him at a distance. “Babysit Nick Angel for me,” he said. “We’ve got enough to deal with as it is.”

Nico struggled against Annabeth’s restraining arms. Unfortunately, those same arms had once held the sky itself, so the struggle was futile. She dragged him into the camp borders, where onlookers swayed in the fog, staring at the red and blue lights.

Nico strained against her grip. “Put me down!”

“Stop fighting! _Stop fighting!_ ” Annabeth demanded. “I won’t let go until you calm down!”

Nico thrashed around. Annabeth held on for dear life.

The gathered crowd stared in horror as Mr. D and Chiron nodded at the policemen, making some agreement. Mr. D got in the police car. Chiron signed some paperwork. The police car drove away.

Nico went limp, his eyes tracing the red and blue lights until they disappeared into the fog.

Chiron, still in his chair, waited for the woman to drive away. The bus started with a sickening scraping sound, and scraped itself away. The sound stayed long after the bus did. Chiron then rose, his truncated horse’s body emerging, his fake legs lying uselessly in the chair. There was clear dread on his face as he approached the crowd.

Annabeth squeezed Nico slightly tighter. Possibly to restrain him, or perhaps to comfort herself.

“Attention, campers. Certain aspects of Camp Half-Blood have come to mortal attention,” he said wearily. “While they remain unaware of the camp’s true nature, the Mist does not stop them from inspecting the legality of our operation. And… there was a conflict of interest that led to the removal of a camper.”

The crowd muttered fearfully.

“Silence. Silence, now!” Chiron said. “We are fighting to return the removed to camp. Mr. D is going to the police station as we speak. In the meantime, we must take measures to prevent this from happening again.”

Chiron cleared his throat. He had the look of a man about to throw a verbal bomb.

“All half-bloods attending camp without a legal guardian’s consent must inform me that they are doing so.”

There was an explosion of outrage. Of course there was. Half of camp had run away, been abused, or were orphans.

“Silence!”

There was no silence, but Chiron talked anyway.

“I am not returning any of you to your guardians’ custody!” he shouted. “I am trying to ensure that those guardians will not call the police!” Because if the police got involved, Nico realized, Chiron couldn’t do anything. The ball would be in their court.

But this was prevention. It was already too late for Leo.

Outside Nico’s mind, the screaming went on forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The entire infirmary scene is based off bits and pieces of medical dramas I've picked up over the years. I've played with the idea of writing a full "Untold Stories of Camp Half-Blood Infirmary" fic, but the likelihood of that becoming a thing is low.
> 
> What Leo was really talking about in the "tool" rant is meant to be ambiguous. It might become clear later on in the fic. Also, the "racist Minos" bit is based off personal experience.
> 
> I'm trying not to suddenly smack the reader over the head with the religious content, but this chapter is mostly buildup to Leo getting taken away, so there wasn't much else I could talk about. Leo saying that he "knows now" implies at some point, he may have bought into Abraham's belief that he was possessed. If that's so, why was he so vehemently anti-Abraham in that dream sequence? Well... ;)
> 
> Don't forget about that hand wound. That isn't the last you'll see of it.
> 
> Annabeth will be important later on in helping unravel the plot. For now, she's here to contrast Leo. In terms of interactions with Christians, Leo's pretty unusual. Annabeth's experience is closer to the norm. The US is 60% Christian, and while not all of them are like Abraham, it still leads to some awkwardness for a typical half-blood.
> 
> And finally, the end of the chapter. The Mist can only do so much for CHB. If Abraham so wishes, he could take further legal action on them, leading to a line of inquiry about how many "missing" children are actually at the camp...
> 
> This is how the world ends, folks. Not with a bang, but with a lawsuit.


	3. Abandon All Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess who found the time to update from her phone? Emphasis on "from my phone." This one's gonna be a little worse on typos. I proofread as good as I could, but tiny tiny screen limits me. Enjoy

On the bright side, Ezra had left his Christian screamo CDs on the bus.

Leo huddled against his backpack. He’d spent his entire day being hustled around by cops and dealing with the six-hour drive to Warwick. The bus was always a crowded swelter of children, but now he was alone. The temperature had fallen.

Teresa was driving. He thought of her sour face, and the bus’s paint job—a deceptively cheery, rainbow-colored scene with cartoon doves, a rainbow, and the words “PLANT THE SEED OF GOD AND IT WILL BECOME A FLOWER”—and chuckled nervously.

Leo sat furthest from the front, bundled in his army jacket and looking at Haste the Day album art. Asking Teresa to play these CDs would be ill-advised. But it was a distraction.

He ran his nail along the ridged edge of the CD case. Rrrrrt. Rrrrrt. Rrrrrt.

His fingers started melting the plastic. He stopped.

He looked out the window. There was complete darkness. No one was around to help.

Leo rested his head on the top of the backpack. He wasn’t gonna cry.

Back at the police station, he told an officer he was feeling sick and they let him go to the bathroom. He was lying. He just dry-sobbed in there for an hour before he managed to shamble back into the waiting room.

The bus made another scraping noise that Leo felt in his teeth.

It was a good thing he didn’t throw up for real. He hadn’t had anything to eat today except when they stopped at Arby’s to use the bathroom. Teresa bought a burger to be polite, tried to usher Leo away quickly, but failed to do so before the cashier asked what he wanted. Teresa grudgingly let him get a small box of curly fries. It could be a while before he could eat again.

Leo wondered how his friends were holding up. He wished Piper were with him when he was pulled out of bed. She could’ve charmspeaked (charmspoken? Charmspake?) the police right out of camp. Jason wouldn’t be much help, since the legal system wasn’t something he could punch, but at least he’d be good moral support. How long did it take them to realize he was gone?

Well, Nico noticed near-instantly, but that was an accident.

Leo looked out the window again. There, the brief flash of a small town! Boom! Well, now it’s gone.

Thinking about the last two days, Leo’s chest tightened in embarrassment. He didn’t feel completely comfortable near Nico—he was intimidating. Y’know. Despite the top of his head coming up to Leo’s nose.

But Nico went out of his way to pop in and make sure he was okay, and whether that was a product of loneliness or not didn’t matter as much he thought it would.

He just—

Leo didn’t want to help Abraham by whipping himself. But after Nico protected him, he felt like an asshole.

One day, Leo snapped his leg while working on a grabber arm in the bunker and Jason sent Nico to check on him when he didn’t show up for his training session. And the day after that, Will sent Nico to drag him to the infirmary for a follow-up. And the day after that… well, no was sent him, but Nico wanted to see how the grabber was going.

And Leo let him, not because he liked him all that much, but because he was afraid to tell him to get out.

Oh god. Oh god.

Leo looked out the window again and inhaled so deeply it hurt.

He’d seen “camps” before. Camp Half-Blood was a day camp, despite the combat lessons. Camp Jupiter was a camp in the sense that a military installation was a camp. He wasn’t quite sure what to call this.

This here was a concrete-and-plaster monolith looming on the horizon. The compound was flanked by high walls and lamp-posts that washed those walls in a ghostly, long-shadowed light. The entrance gate was not visible yet, but the tower behind it was, watching through inscrutably narrow windows.

He couldn’t see the cross for the trees, but he knew that was still there, too, bone-white arms outstretched. Waiting.

They turned into the driveway and went down the winding road to the gate.

“Welcome to Camp Gilead,” Teresa muttered. “Or rather, welcome back.”

A mile of complete darkness later, they approached the gate.

The trees hugged the wall so closely in this spot that there didn’t appear to be a wall, except where it intersected the road. There, a tall arch opened, choked off by a metal gate. There was an entry booth where somebody was supposed to check your papers, but nobody was there at this hour.

Teresa leaned out the bus window and punched in the entry code. The gate rattled painfully as it pulled back.

They got off the bus in the parking lot, and Teresa dragged him by the hand. It was somehow even foggier and windier than it had been this morning, to the point where Camp Gilead seemed to be nothing more than a gray haze.

The reception building was outfitted with fake wood paneling. Leo knew it was fake just putting his hand on it. The fake wood was half an inch thick and the remaining six inches of wall was solid concrete.

The interior was outfitted with racks of kitschy souvenirs and camping supplies for the kids that forgot theirs. A t-shirt reading “SMILE! GOD LOVES YOU” hung inches away from Leo’s frowning face as he stood at the desk.

Teresa rang the call bell. This, too, was broken. It made a sad little clink, the sound of a penny dropped in a bucket.

Nevertheless, Ezra heard and answered.

Now that Leo was looking at him up close, Ezra seemed healthier than he’d last seen him. His skin had gained a little color and his face had lost baby fat. Someone must have wrangled him, because his hair was short. But he hadn’t lost that wide-eyed childishness to his demeanor.

He wore a pale green shirt. On the shirt: “CAMP GILEAD COUNSELOR 2012.”

“Leo!” Ezra said. “Glad to have you back!”

“...Glad to be back,” Leo said. You know, like a liar.

Ezra reached under the desk and handed Leo a blank form and a pen. “To think I didn’t want to take the night watch tonight! I would’ve missed you completely.”

Surprisingly, Ezra had no hard feelings.

Teresa took the form and pen from Leo’s hands, untrusting of his handwriting. Good. The last thing Leo wanted to do right now was fill out paperwork.

They looked at each other for a moment, Ezra in his green Gilead shirt and slacks, Leo in his orange Half-Blood shirt and army jacket.

“So, what have you been up to?” Ezra asked.

“Nothing.” Teresa finished the paperwork and scurried out the door without a word.

Ezra dropped all pretenses of professionalism. “Oh, come on. We haven’t seen each other since we were eleven. You can’t do ‘nothing’ in that timespan.”

 _Uh, I found out I’m the son of a pagan god, got possessed for real, and then died a little bit._ “I’ll talk about it in the morning. Right now I’d just like some sleep.”

A brief flash of annoyance crossed Ezra’s face. The moment passed. “Of course. I’ll see what I can do.”

Ezra flipped through a binder of spreadsheets looking for an empty bed. Leo looked at the Bible-themed postcard rack.

“Quite a bit happened while you were gone,” Ezra rambled. “Our popularity went up a lot, so it’s not just our father and siblings babysitting a handful of kids. I’ve gotten a lot better at public speaking so now I’m preaching my own sermons. Good thing, too, because we have people coming in from as far as New Jersey. I’m just amazed how—”

The door jingled open. A tall, tired man Leo did not recognize marched in the door.

He gazed ahead, a jumble of sticks in his arms. The man had a dark, scruffy beard, and his shaggy hair was half bleached where it rested on his dirty green sweatshirt. If Jesus got frosted tips and became a hobo, maybe he’d look like this.

The man set the sticks on a tarp on the floor. Ezra whistled at him, which startled the man so much he sneezed. Leo had met dogs that did that. “Hey, Chicken Man! Do you know where the empty beds are?”

Leo raised an eyebrow. “You call your coworker ‘chicken man?’”

Ezra shrugged. “He’s never told me his name. He’s never told me anything. The kids call him Chicken Man because he hangs out in the chicken coop when he’s not working.”

Indeed, Chicken Man had some feathers in his beard as he walked behind the desk and peered at the binder. Leo realized that Abraham must have picked Chicken Man up off the street. Leo had met a lot of mute homeless people over the years, and most of them weren’t dangerous. Some were even good company. Personally, he felt bad for Chicken Man. Nobody deserved to put up with Abraham.

Chicken Man pointed at something, grunting.

“Cabin 6?”

He gave Ezra a thumbs up.

“Alright, thanks.”

Chicken Man quickly glanced at Leo before doing a double take and giving Ezra a confused expression.

“Oh, yeah. New camper,” Ezra said, scanning the paperwork mindlessly.

Chicken Man leaned over the counter and looked at Leo closely. He seemed to search for something.

He tapped the form Ezra held with a dirt-caked finger. Ezra looked up. “You want to read it?”

Chicken Man nodded.

Ezra handed him the form. Chicken Man ran his hand down the page, trying to find something, until he stopped. “Are you done?”

Ezra said, sounding amused.

Chicken Man growled softly.

Ezra backed up. “Excuse me?” he demanded, as if his coworker could answer.

Chicken Man snarled and bared his teeth at Leo like a dog about to lunge. There was a borderline murderous look in his eye. Any moment, he would foam at the mouth.

But he did none of those things.

Instead, he glanced at the ceiling, frustrated. Then he threw the form in Leo’s face and stormed out into the fog.

Ezra sighed. “I’m sorry, he hasn’t acted like that in months! I don’t know what’s gotten into him…”

Leo chuckled nervously. “Who knows. I’m a ladykiller. Maybe he was worried I’d make a move on his hens.”

He had a bad feeling about that look. That wasn’t the glare of a madman. Sure, Chicken Man appeared mad walking in the room—glassy-eyed and unfocused, staring through Ezra instead of at him. But the moment his eyes went to Leo, he seemed to wake up. There was clarity—and there was anger.

He wasn’t sure what had triggered that anger, but it was something on that form. Leo had no idea what it could be. If he’d met Chicken Man before, he was sure he would’ve remembered.

That train of thought wouldn’t end until Ezra led him to the showers and the water came on. “Oh gods, that’s cold!” Leo yelped.

He froze even more when Ezra replied through the door, “What was that?”

“…I said, ‘oh God, that’s cold,’” Leo said slowly.

Ezra paused.

“I’ll let that slide because we’re alone here, but I better not hear you taking God’s name in vain in front of the campers!” Ezra said with good humor.

Leo let his breath go.

There must have been a timer on the hot water heater in the compound. The shower felt like he was getting pelted with ice cubes.

When he finished, he found that the clothes he’d removed were mysteriously missing, replaced by a green Camp Gilead shirt and clean jeans. Leo called out. “Ezra?”

“Yes?”

“What happened to my clothes?”

“They’re covered in grease. You can have them back when they’re washed.”

Ezra was right—Leo had been wearing those clothes for two days, and he’d spent the whole first day working. But as he dressed he had a sinking feeling that he wouldn’t be getting those clothes back anytime soon.

Leo walked out of the shower where Ezra was waiting, holding the greasy clothes. Chicken Man was back by his side. He scowled deeply, but made no move to attack, which seemed good enough for Ezra.

Leo looked at himself in the mirror. The poisonous green shirt drooped unnaturally over his shoulders.

Ezra took him down the hallway. The cabins were in across the path from the showers. Beyond the reception building, there was no concrete. The cabins were just wood.

Ezra smiled at Leo every now and then, but that expression faltered at times. Like a man shifting a heavy burden in his arms.

Chicken Man was more open in his scorn, which Leo appreciated. He seemed calmer. Leo still felt pale eyes at the back of his neck.

“Here it is,” Ezra said, saccharinely cheerful. “Cabin 6.”

Cabin 6’s door creaked when Ezra opened it. A few occupants blinked at the fluorescent, perpetually active streetlamp light before lying back down.

“Surprise camper!” Ezra whisper-shouted to them. To Leo, he said “If you need anything, holler” before breezing around the corner.  
Leo stood in the door for a moment.

Chicken Man rounded the corner slower than Ezra. When he finally disappeared, Leo heard Ezra say quietly, “I’ll flip you for the jacket—heads, I get it…”

Dorm 6 had seven campers sleeping in the dark room and one empty bed that Leo slipped into.

He stared at the ceiling for a very long time.

* * *

Nico had done a lot of weird things, but breaking into a library was a first.

It wasn’t hard. Breaking into anything was made substantially easier by shadow travel. He stumbled out of the darkness, still riding inertia from the jump, and he caught a bookshelf on the way down, knocking a book to the floor with a muffled thump.

His hand flew to his sword.

Twenty seconds later, he slowly peeled his hand away.

Nico was a lone demigod walking around an abandoned building at night. He was practically asking to be eaten.

Nico climbed over the circulation counter and booted up a computer. The fan strained, and the blue light of the screen pierced the darkness.

He closed out of the catalogue that popped up automatically.

Arguably, he could’ve asked Annabeth if he needed a computer. But she had her hands full with spreadsheets listing all the campers teetering on the brink of homelessness.

Besides, if he asked Annabeth, she would’ve told him that this was a bad idea.

Nico tapped his fingers on the hilt of his sword. Slowly (for Nico rarely handled keyboards), he typed: “FATHER ABRAHAM NEW YORK.”

Google yielded almost nothing for that. Except two words.

“GILEAD CHURCH.”

This gave him a more promising result. Gilead Church was evidently in Manhattan. He would like Abraham’s home address, but this was a start.

The mousewheel clicked softly as he went through the images. There were many, many pictures of kids in green shirts.

Nico stopped on a picture with Leo in it.

It was a group picture. He’d almost scrolled by it, but he noticed the familiar hair and smile at the last second. He zoomed in.

Leo was maybe eleven in the picture. His curly hair stuck out in all directions and his green shirt didn’t fit. He smiled crookedly.

A little too crookedly. Someone had clearly airbrushed out a bruise on his face.

Nico zoomed in on the shirt.

He searched “CAMP GILEAD.”

* * *

Leo staggered to Sunday service.

It was summer. Most of the kids here now were not the same kids who were here when he was eleven. However, there was the occasional “long-term camper,” a polite term for the children Abraham had personally adopted. Those kids were not happy to see the boy who escaped without them.

“Gods, I’m late,” Leo mumbled to himself. Walking off a punch in the gut wasn’t the best feeling in the world, especially when one was in a hurry. Spotting the open gym in the distance and hearing the swarm of children confirmed it. The glass doors of the only obviously concrete building were ajar; Chicken Man stood by these doors to silently judge the latecomers.

Leo cringed under his gaze as he approached. He waved, smiling sheepishly.

Chicken Man huffed impatiently. He held two fingers up, pointed them at his own eyes, and pointed at Leo.

Leo stared at his hand, encased in a dirty fingerless glove. Chicken Man’s mouth twitched. One of his cheeks was red, like the sun had reached out and slapped him. Leo realized that this was the most complex communication Chicken Man had offered him. It was probably important that he respond.

“The feeling’s mutual, Big Bird,” he teased.

Chicken Man squawked in outrage as Leo scampered inside.

The doors Chicken Man was guarding were the side doors; they faced the same direction as the bleachers and were only slightly to the left of them. Leo knew this and took full advantage of it. He slipped in and dropped to the ground. Ezra was right. The camp had grown—so much so that kids were sitting on the floor in front of the bleachers. He huddled near the fringe of the crowd, near campers who wouldn’t recognize him.

Abraham stood at the podium, too enraptured by his own gospel to notice. “…And the Lord spoke unto me in a voice so soft, and so terrible, yet inaudible to the unbeliever. And He said, ‘cast off thy name, for from this day on and unto the hour of thy death thou shalt be called Abraham. And you shall go forth upon this tract of land and train the soldiers of God, who shall lay down their lives for their faith. And on judgement day, when all others are at the mercy of the angel of death, my children will escape the inferno.’ Amen!”

“Amen!” the crowd roared back. Leo was a second delayed, making an echo of an “amen.”

Then Ezra, scurrying in the back, rolled down the projector screen and began projecting the lyrics to the hymnal accompaniment. The crowd rose.

 _My God, my Father, while I stray_  
_Far from my home on life’s rough way_  
_Oh, teach me from my heart to say,_  
_“Thy will be done.”_

Eight stanzas later, the crowd sat back down. They were silent.

A smile and a laugh entered Abraham’s voice. “Children! Today is not a day of weeping and gnashing of teeth! This is a joyful day!”

The campers cautiously murmured. Ezra looked excited, bouncing his leg in the folding chair behind Abraham. Even the cranky Chicken Man moved closer.

“A prodigal son,” Abraham said, looking pointedly at Leo, “has returned to us. Leonidas Valdez, please come to the front.”

Leo’s heart went cold as he walked to the podium. He felt like the eidolon had reached into him and taken control again, unable to control his legs even as he knew he was walking into danger.

Abraham’s hand was on his shoulder. “Through the grace of God, this lost lamb has been delivered back into our arms. We must welcome him back into the fold. If you all will follow me to the back…”

Behind the gym, there was a slab of blacktop, and behind that slab there was a river. Leo’s knees trembled. He was standing at the edge, and he could feel the vapor coming off the water’s surface.

Abraham took his hand and pulled him into the water. He tried to wrench away, but the preacher’s grip threatened to crush his wrist.

“Today, Leo will be returned to Christ.”

Leo’s legs felt like cold, wet sticks. If Abraham was a man of God, he did not want to see what that God looked like.

“Please repeat after me the words of the Good Confession.”

This was not a request.

“I believe.”

“I believe,” Leo said quietly.

“That Jesus is the Christ.”

“That Jesus is the Christ.” The campers stared down at him from the blacktop.

“The Son of the Living God.”

“The Son of the Living God.” He imagined the gods staring down at him from the blacktop.

“My Lord.”

“My Lord.” He imagined Jason and Piper staring down at him from the blacktop. Disgusted.

“And my savior.”

“…And my savior,” Leo said, thinking of the horror Nico had shown the night he saw his scars.

And then his head went under the water.

Cold entered his lungs. He was kept under for so long that he felt his chest would burst, and then he came up, taking a wheezy, painful gasp of air.

Abraham abandoned him as soon as the spectacle was over. He dragged himself onto the riverbank. Nobody helped him. Nobody stopped him.

Leo wobbled onto the blacktop and fell flat on his back, staring at the sky. The few stragglers who hadn’t gone back into the gym with Abraham either glanced at him with lethargic sympathy or didn’t look at him at all.

Leo looked imploringly at the sun and prayed for help.

Jason. Piper. Nico. Anyone.

He felt like he laid there for hours.

But eventually, Chicken Man scraped him off the pavement and dumped him in the infirmary.

* * *

Right before Nico could click the first result, something moved in the darkness.

He gripped his weapon tightly. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for night vision at times like this. Something was stalking him, yes, something that was walking one foot at a time and fit in a New York village library, so perhaps it would be an easy fight.

Nico slid from the chair to the ground. He knelt behind the circulation counter and waited.

He moved to the edge to peek out into the lobby.

A hand touched his arm.

He swung blindly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus we learn more about Leo's confinement. Also the crazy symbolism really revs the fuck up.
> 
> Pay particular attention to the initial description of Gilead. There's something important in those paragraphs.
> 
> Chicken Man is a character I was very excited to wrote. He has a lot of personality that can't be conveyed through dialogue, which is a fun experiment for me. What's his real name? Why doesn't he speak? What's his problem with Leo? He's an enigma!
> 
> Abraham may seem like a simple malicious priest, but look closely.
> 
> Then we've got the mysterious ambusher at the end. That person is gonna have a major role to play.
> 
> Finally, I'd like to hear your theories thus far! Inferno is a puzzle as well as a story. Who is Chicken Man? What are Abraham's motives? Who else is in the library? How do you think these pieces will fit together?


	4. Ye Who Enter Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late night posting babay

Annabeth looked just like her mother.

A mortal would wonder what a librarian would be doing sitting in a reading chair at this hour. But despite the bookish glasses and modest outfit and the copy of “The Art of War” in her hand, Nico would recognize her anywhere. After all, he’d towed an enormous statue of her halfway across the world.

“Lady Athena,” he said slowly. “What are you doing here?”

The library seemed lit with her presence, as if the books themselves were honored. But the ripples of cool air emanating from her form spoke of a less cheerful purpose.

Athena raised her eyebrows and closed her book. “This is a place of learning, and therefore my domain. I am more than within my rights to keep you from making a terrible mistake.”

Nico wasn’t sure whether to bow or be outraged.

He glanced back at the computer. “I don’t understand.”

“Allowing you to pursue your friend would pose a significant danger to yourself and others. It would be irresponsible of me to not intervene.” The goddess’s gray eyes bore holes into him.

Nico stood. “Significant danger? I don’t see how a middle-aged woman with straight bangs poses a significant danger to anyone.”

“You misunderstand.”

“Of course I misunderstand. You’re not telling me much of anything.”

Athena pressed her lips together. “I’m not obliged to tell you. The plans of the Olympians are private matters.”

His mind reeled. The Olympians are in on this? “Wait. You’re just going to leave Leo with some maniac?”

“The risk outweighs the benefits.”

“What risk?” Nico demanded. “He built an entire boat to transport your statue. That should make him an invaluable asset to you. What is scaring you so badly that you feel the need to leave him behind?”

This was the wrong response. Athena rose from her chair, revolted by the nasty thing she had just found on the bottom of her shoe that had the gall to tell her off.

“Enough talking. I have business to attend to. If there are any other details you should be informed of, Lord Dionysus will inform you of them.”

Nico was reminded that Athena was no more a mortal than he had been a stalk of corn.

“Now go,” she commanded, and everything went cold.

Cold.

Cold.

Next thing he knew, he was staring at Percy’s ceiling and his ears were ringing.

“Nico? Nico, are you okay? Do you need a doctor?” Jason said softly. Percy was squeezing Nico’s arms and gritting his teeth, like he was resisting the urge to shake him until he answered.

Nico groaned. “What happened?”

Percy’s bed was disturbed and the lights were already on. Jason was the only one dressed. Percy was in his boxers, and apparently he was still sore from the water bottle because he was wearing the ice pack sling on his hips. Leo had laughed his ass off while making that.

“You just shadow traveled in here and passed out!” Percy said.

“That couldn’t have been shadow travel!” Jason insisted. “He came in from the ceiling! That’s pretty well lit!”

Nico tried to sit up, but immediately got dizzy and dropped back into Percy’s arms. Percy and Jason began fussing. “I’m fine,” Nico pleaded. “Just give me some space.”

When the world stopped spinning and Nico could focus, he realized the sun was peeking in through the windows. It was dark when he left the library. How long had he been out?

“Nico,” Jason said hoarsely, and it was then that Nico noticed how puffy his eyes were. “What happened?”

Nico explained his little field trip, starting with shadow traveling to the library and finishing with “and then she slam dunked me into this cabin. By the way, what is Jason doing here?”

“What am I doing here? I’d like to know what you were doing breaking and entering!” Jason demanded.

“I’m not just going to sit on my ass while one of us is in trouble!” Nico cried.

Jason’s anger became muddled with confusion. “What do you mean, trouble? Is it Leo?” He’d clearly been worried all day, to the point where he was walking into walls because he couldn’t focus.

Nico mentally smacked himself. He was trying not to tell anyone about his suspicions, since Leo was so secretive about the topic, but he’d gone and screwed the pooch.

“Jason…” he sighed. “This is something Leo would want to tell you in person. But your friend’s with some seriously dangerous people. I can feel it.”

Jason’s jaw tightened. “Then why doesn’t Athena want us knowing where he is?”

Nico looked back and forth at the two. Percy looked paler than usual. Jason’s eyes were still shiny with tears.

“I don’t know.”

* * *

Leo was vomiting river water.

* * *

“…And finally, camp is now on soft lockdown,” Mr. D said at the tail end of the morning announcements. “While you brats are still free to move around camp grounds, no one is getting in or out of the border without special permission.”

The day after Leo was taken away, the mood had gone from desperate panic to grim resignation. Campers’ attitudes cooled off as they undertook the work of finding themselves and their friends a couch to sleep on in case the worst happened.

The large red stain on the parrot print shirt Mr. D had been wearing since yesterday contributed to the tone.

Nico was sitting morosely at the Hades table. Will Solace had made it clear that even if they weren’t dating anymore, they were still friends and he was always welcome at Apollo, but it wasn’t the best spot to brood, so he stayed here.

Athena had told Mr. D something. Even he looked vaguely bothered where he would normally be indifferent. Not like Nico was going to ask. His boundaries with Mr. D were far more restricting than with other gods—not because Nico respected him any more, but because he had to put up with the guy on a daily basis. If he said something to piss him off, he’d get dish duty for the whole summer.

Percy and Annabeth were speaking at the edge of the dining pavilion. They frequently cast glances at Nico. Annabeth dashed towards him. “My mother contacted you?” she demanded.

“Good morning, and yes she did,” Nico replied.

“Why?” she asked, and when Nico tried to respond she added, “well, not why, since Percy told me why, but why that?”

“I don’t know either. I was hoping you would have an idea.”

Annabeth made a frustrated noise and half sat before rising again. “Am I allowed to sit here?”

“No. Go ahead.”

She sat next to Nico and began speaking quietly. “So, recap. Leo is at some other summer camp, most likely with the abusive priest you described—if I’m reading into that discussion correctly—and my mother won’t let you get him out of there.”

“That’s right,” Nico whispered to Annabeth.

Percy stared at her distantly, seemingly upset that he was being left out of the conversation. “Is there any reason you left Percy on the sidelines? Not that I’m complaining.”

“I know Percy. He’s going to rush in there if we don’t keep him away from the situation. I don’t know what to expect, but if it’s bad enough that a god told us to stay out…” Annabeth trailed off.

Nico understood. His mind had run rampant all morning trying to figure out what Camp Gilead was. “I get it.”

She sighed. “Maybe there’s something more to this. What was her exact phrasing?”

“She said that letting me pursue Leo would ‘be a threat to myself and others,’” Nico said, putting Athena’s words in air quotes.

“And she said that you would be doing the pursuing? You in particular?”

“I—yeah, she did.”

“So it could be argued that if someone else tried to get him, they might be okay?” Annabeth suggested with a hopeful twinkle in her eyes.

Nico reviewed the conversation. He couldn’t remember anything that disagreed with her theory.

“…If and when I get arrested, I’m hiring you as my lawyer,” he said.

* * *

Meanwhile, Leo was sitting at breakfast, casting jealous glances at his peers.

Meals at Camp Gilead were held in the cafeteria. Because it was a large building that could hold the entire population of the camp, this was concrete. Hardly any attempt was made to hide its artificial nature. The linoleum under Leo’s feet was broken and chipped. The hard surface of the walls was painted in cheerful hues like beige, mauve, and fuck you.

Each table was circular, and had twelve fixed seats. Leo’s table had three occupants. One was himself.

The one to his left was a kid he’d seen last time he was at Camp Gilead. Nancy had started camp just before he ran away and apparently she was still here. She was still a little shit.

The one to his right was a younger girl he had never seen before with wireless ear buds. Seemed odd that Abraham would allow that, but there were more pressing matters at hand.

All three of them wore a black badge. This meant they were all abstaining from food for “spiritual adjustment” reasons. No one wanted to sit with them because fasters were usually in a bad mood.

Leo managed to tear his eyes away from Ezra’s mashed potatoes long enough to see Nancy’s hand on his tool belt. “Don’t touch that!” he snapped. He’d had the good sense to store that belt independently of his clothes, so Ezra hadn’t confiscated it, and he was not about to lose it to some chick.

Scratch that. Most people he’d call “chicks” were very nice. Nancy was not a chick.

Nancy had a big greasy tangle of curls hanging down her back. Her eyes were sunken. Despite obvious heavy exposure to the sun, her freckles did not make her look healthy. In this particular light, they looked like liver spots.

Wait a second.

Chick magnet! Goddamn it, he should have said that when Chicken Man made it relevant.

Nancy blew a raspberry at him. “Finders keepers. I already took three screwdrivers out of that thing and you didn’t even notice. Where do you get this stuff? Is there food in it?”

“If there were food in this I’d have eaten it,” Leo said. “There wouldn’t be any left for you anyway.”

She scowled. “Figured you’d be full after what happened this morning. Looked like you swallowed half the New Jordan River.”

“Well, surprise! I’m not, so can we quit talking about it?”

“You know what, if you’re so hungry, why don’t you run back to that Camp Half-Blood I heard so much about? Maybe they’ll give you three hots and a cot.”

Leo’s face warmed. “Where did you hear about that?”

“Okay, maybe I ain’t heard, but I seen it. On your dirty laundry. Only seen an orange t-shirt like that one other time. Are you crippled?” she said offhand.

“No! Why—”

“Could’ve sworn it was a camp for cripples,” Nancy muttered.

The girl to Leo’s right then spoke up. “Dang it, Nancy, I don’t even know what you’re saying and I still hate it!” she said in a slurring accent Leo had trouble discerning. “It’s like you’re grumbling at him in another language!”

“Then turn your hearing aids on!” Nancy said, leaning to where the girl could see her face.

“So I can hear you whine at that poor boy?” She shook her head and stormed off to a different table. In the distance, she took out a purple ball of yarn and knitting needles. Ever seen a tiny girl angrily knit a glove? If not, you don’t know what you’re missing.

Leo was almost in a good mood after breakfast and during morning activities. He was helping Ezra manage a reenactment of the story of Joseph for most of it, and in spite of Ezra he was having a good time polishing up the set. It wasn’t the most technical thing he could be doing. But it was comforting.

Leo peeled grapes for an Egyptian jar labeled “corpse eyes” as Ezra pulled the curtains closed. Every building in camp had wide windows facing the center of the property where the tower was. Even the curtains wouldn’t close all the way, leaving a silver of wooden wall visible.

Ezra rushed him backstage. The only person that needed to be on set was the guy playing Joseph. “Just wait back here. Maybe take a nap. I won’t tell,” Ezra said.

Oh, Ezra. Not evil enough to enforce the law. Not good enough to challenge it. And so it went.

Ezra went somewhere else while Leo went to the back room.

Camp Gilead was full of mysterious unmarked doors that were either locked or led to rooms with no apparent purpose. It seemed that each building had at least one. Leo didn’t care why the doors were there. Every time he saw one, he tried to open it, because sometimes there was something useful behind it. He knew what was behind this door. There was a bare bulb and a worn couch.

He threw himself onto the peeling surface of the couch and sighed. The stress and hunger was burning him out.

The patterns in the yellow wallpaper swam as he drifted off, looking at his exposed wrist, wondering what Nico had done with his bracelets.

* * *

Some camper saw Nico washing blood into the sink and left the bathroom as fast as they’d entered, a new rumor on their heels.

* * *

The unmarked door banged the wall, and Leo bolted awake.

Teresa was standing in the doorway with a wooden ruler in her hand. She had aged poorly over the last six years. Her hair had a stripe of white in it and the wrinkles in her forehead were more pronounced. Typically a middle-aged woman of her caliber would be subject to ridicule by Wal-Mart cashiers, much less a brigade of troubled children. Leo jumped to his feet.

“Figures I’d find you lazing around back here,” she snarled. “Everyone else is cleaning up and you’re asleep.”

Leo clenched his jaw to stop it from quivering. “I lost track of time.”

Teresa sniffed. That wasn’t good enough.

Leo had spent his whole life training himself to handle precise and delicate actions. After sixteen years of existence, he still didn’t have abs, which was disappointing. But his hands were steady as a rock and he was proud of that. He could do work so fine he needed a magnifying glass and could thread a needle almost as fast as an Athena kid.

That being said, Leo was terrified that Teresa might hit his hands so hard they would break.

Teresa finally got tired of hearing him whimper and left him to his own devices. At this point, he rushed off to the bathroom with his head bowed.

Leo’s wounds were throbbing. His hands were bruised bloody, and the existing cut on his palm had reopened and gushed blood beneath the bandage. He ran water over his hands. It was bitingly cold and relieved the pain.

The water soaked the bandage, which was uncomfortable, but Leo didn’t want to see the damage.

He tried to make a fist with his cut hand. He could barely flex his palm without agitating it. He could wiggle all his fingers, which was a relief, but he could barely curl them enough to hold a pencil.

He didn’t want to unwrap the bandage, but a worrying amount of blood was dripping from it. He did so gently. His empty stomach lurched.

In the interest of good taste, let’s just say the wound under Leo’s dirty three day old bandage didn’t look great.

Leo was still staring at his hand when Chicken Man walked in the bathroom.

He acted like he’d been looking for Leo for a while. Chicken Man beckoned him towards the door impatiently.

Leo held up his wounded hand helplessly.

Chicken Man huffed, irritated but apparently not surprised. He ran Leo’s hand quickly under the faucet and slapped something from his own pocket onto the cleaned wound.

Leo raised his eyebrows. “Hello Kitty?” he asked, pointing at the new, very pink bandage.

Chicken Man only glared before whisking him out of the building.

Leo was led to a building at the back of the campground. It was a chapel, an old one with stained glass and a steeple and all the fixings. This was at the back of the camp and the trees largely hid it. Despite being innocuous, it was the building this camp was built around.

Near this chapel, there was a chicken coop. Chicken Man waved at the chickens as he walked by.

Leo was slid between the oak doors as Chicken Man stayed outside. Abraham was in the front pew, facing the stained glass window opposite the doors.

Leo tried to pull Chicken Man in through the doors, but he resisted.

Leo silently asked why.

Chicken Man shook his head. He pointed at Leo and at the chapel hall. He made an “ok” sign.

Leo mouthed, “he’ll hurt me.”

Chicken Man shook his head and made the ok sign again before leaving.

Leo was alone with Abraham.

He tentatively stepped inside. The carpet muffled his footsteps. The house lights were off; only sunlight streamed through the windows, dyed by the colored glass and bathing the sanctuary in soft light.

Abraham did not turn to face Leo. This made Leo even more anxious. Abraham had a special place for exorcism and this wasn’t it. Actually, Abraham didn’t use the chapel at all. He ran a whole church in Manhattan. What would be the point?

Leo slowly approached the pew. Abraham was reading a newspaper. “LION MYSTERIOUSLY APPEARS IN POLICE STATION, MAULS 5,” the headline claimed. Abraham did not look up until Leo cleared his throat.

Abraham looked up. “Leo,” he said, putting the paper away. “Good to have you back. I hope you’ll forgive me for the incident this morning. I got so caught up in the excitement I almost forgot to let you back up.”

Abraham laughed. Leo didn’t.

“Well. In any case, it was a relief to see you again. We need more good brains in this place. Ezra’s a sweet kid, but bless his heart, he fell out of his mother’s birth canal head first.” He sighed.

Leo was still silent.

Abraham stopped laughing. “…Don’t tell me you’re still possessed.”

“I’m not possessed. I was never possessed,” Leo said.

“What else do you call screaming in a foreign language while lighting things on fire, son?”

Leo paused to think of a convincingly jokey answer. “Chemistry class?” he said feebly.

Abraham laughed again, but it was just a breath of recirculated air. “Leo, Leo. You were such a nice kid in the beginning. What happened there?”

Leo clenched his still functioning fist. He’d been a child reeling from the death of his mother when he first came here. He bought blindly into the idea that God would help guide him through this terrible world. He got hooked onto the bait like so many other fish.

But Leo wasn’t a fish, and he wasn’t a child, and Abraham did not deserve to be a father.

“I saw through your bullshit,” he said calmly.

Abraham frowned. “You’re leaving me no option but to continue your treatment. I’d hoped you would find God’s light on your own, but that clearly hasn’t happened.”

“Sure hasn’t.”

“Don’t interrupt me!” Abraham barked, red with rage.

Even though Abraham was seated lower than him, Leo felt very small.

Abraham seemed to count to ten. “…How about we just pray about it? Get this thing off on the right foot.”

Leo relaxed a little. This was not the most distressing outcome that could’ve happened.

Abraham placed his hands on Leo’s shoulders and bowed his head. Leo followed suit. “Heavenly father, please guide Leo on his path to atonement. He knows not what he says.” Leo did not close his eyes. Abraham did.

Leo stared at the carpet until the prayer ended and Abraham let him leave.

When Leo walked back, it was after lunch and Chicken Man was lying face down in the grass.

Leo approached cautiously and with a big stick. If he wasn’t okay, Leo did not want to touch his corpse barehanded. He had his limbs splayed out in such a way.

Luckily Chicken Man was not dead, and was very angry that Leo chose to wake him by hitting him in the stomach with a tree branch. “Okay! Okay, I’m sorry!” Leo shouted as Chicken Man chased him away.

Leo managed to run into Nancy again in the reception building. They were shredding old documents, a task that required minimal surveillance and thus attracted unsavory conversation.

“So I been thinking,” Nancy said, a greasy stand of hair in her mouth. “And I think you and I should look over each other’s stashes.”

“Our stashes?” This was happening in the back of the building. Leo could see the front desk from here. He was tempted to burn the paper instead of fumbling with his bruised fingers, but he wasn’t sure what Nancy would see if he did. The Mist was always iffy with his powers. Sometimes mortals would see no fire at all, or maybe they’d see fire with no apparent source.

“Yeah, the contraband we both have. I grab all my shit off other people. I don’t know where you get yours, but if you got any more screwdrivers I’ll turn a blind eye.”

“Why do you need screwdrivers?”

“What else can I give the good women of Camp Gilly? I can’t just carve a dick in wood shop.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. I got porn, cigarettes, Harry Potter books,” Nancy said, counting on her fingers. “Y’know, all the good stuff the church doesn’t want you to have. I owe you some merch. So what’ll it be?”

“Annabeth.”

“What?”

Leo leaned to look out the door.

Annabeth was standing at the reception desk of Camp Gilead, wearing heavy makeup, but still definitely herself. She was ringing (for a certain value of “ring”) the call bell.

Ezra came in from a separate room to answer. “Yes?”

“Hi, I’m Ann,” Annabeth said in her best airheaded voice. “How do I go about applying for a job here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the gods are involved. No, it's not meant to be a cop out. There's a reason why they're telling Nico to stay away. Guess what it is.
> 
> Percy and Jason are not hanging out in the same cabin for old times' sake. Jason is not crying for no reason. And in case you haven't figured it out, Percy was the (first) victim of "the penis bottle incident."
> 
> I'm just gonna spell out this one. Mr. D turned into a lion and mauled some cops, hence the bloodstain and the headline. Needless to say the legal battle isn't going well. 
> 
> Camp Gilead has some really weird architecture. Wonder why that might be. 
> 
> Yes, that is Nancy Bobofit from that one chapter of The Lightning Thief. She isn't much of a better person than she was then. I didn't plan on including her; I just needed someone to sit to Leo's left for metaphorical reasons. I believe she went through Grover's clothes at some point.
> 
> Unnamed knitting girl will soon be named.
> 
> Abraham was not as steeple-fingered villain as he came off in chapter 1. There's a specific reason why he does not use that chapel. 
> 
> Nancy unintentionally (?) makes a reference to the myth of how the 1st dildo came about. So it goes, Dionysus promised to have sex with a man who died before he could actually do it, so he carved a wooden dick and sat on it on his grave. Though some of y'all are already familiar with that ;)
> 
> And I think that's it! As it is carved on the statue of liberty: Give me your comments, your theories, your tinfoil hats.


	5. Epistles I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude

(Found in Hazel Levesque’s pocket.)

Dear Hazel,

You’ve probably heard about what’s happening on the Greek side by now, but in case you haven’t, somebody’s trying to sue Camp Half-Blood. What you probably haven’t heard is that the same people have kidnapped Leo.

It’s a long and complicated story (that I can’t discuss over Iris Messaging because those lines aren’t secure) but here’s what you need to know.

1\. Leo is in a Christian summer camp called Camp Gilead. DO NOT try breaking him out. The gods have some stake in the situation and I need everyone to hold their horses until we figure out what it is.

2\. By the time this letter gets to you, Annabeth will be trying to infiltrate Gilead. We don’t know what’s in there, but if it gets nasty, I’d like to have you on standby. Show Reyna this and ask for leave to Camp Half-Blood.

3\. CHB is on lockdown, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

4\. The ongoing legal battle means Greek campers are sneaking into the woods to run for New Rome. This is insanely risky and Chiron is unlikely to admit it’s happening. Tell Reyna so she can do something about it.

5\. And I don’t mean to be alarmist, but BE PREPARED FOR THE WORST.

Leo was taken to Camp Gilead by a legal guardian he ran away from. A Misted sheet of paper should have solved the problem, but it didn’t. Now Chiron is flipping out and gods are popping out of the woodwork to tell me to stay away from this random mortal summer camp. Something’s not adding up.

I’m not sure why, but Annabeth wants some records from New Rome’s archives. I hate dumping my dirty work on you but I can’t leave camp without raising the suspicions of at least two different gods. It should be available in the local library. Ask for papers on the “Twilight Zone hypothesis” under the name Sweetwater.

The Greeks are doing everything we can, but if it’s not enough, we need to know we’ve got Rome’s support.

Sincerely,  
Nico di Angelo

* * *

(Found in Cabin 13’s desk drawer, Camp Half-Blood.)

Dear Nico,

I have to say I agree with you. Reyna and Frank are terribly rattled and they refuse to tell anyone why.

They’re reviewing my request for leave. The warning about the Greek refugees was better received; we’re setting up temporary shelters and looking for the missing campers.

I found the records for you, too, though it was no small feat. The new augur tried to block me. Or, rather, the old augur! Miss Lucretia came out of retirement in absence of another trained augur. She’s every bit as stubborn as her grandson was.

She checked them out of the library before I could. When I went to ask when she would finish with them, she threw a hissy fit. Said the gods told her I couldn’t have the records.

I eventually wheedled them away from her, but those words trouble me. Of course Minerva didn’t appear out of the ether to shoo me away; that isn’t her way. But I’d be very careful with these papers, Nico.

They should be in this same envelope. Use them wisely.

Love,  
Hazel

* * *

(Excerpt from documents found in open manila envelope on Cabin 13 desk, Camp Half-Blood.)

Here’s a question you’ve probably heard at least once: “Gods are real?”

Many feel that this is a stupid question. I don’t think it’s a stupid question, per say. It’s just the wrong question. Gods do in fact walk among us; this is just a fact of life for Romans. However, the same people who ask the above question tend to ask an even better question that often flies under the radar: “How?”

How, then, does a god come into existence? Until 1984, all we could do to answer this question was guess. Gods were the shadows on the wall of the Platonic cave. In 1984, however, my team snuck a peek at what cast those shadows.

The experiment was inspired by a late-night viewing of the Twilight Zone episode “Perchance To Dream.” The protagonist suffers from an overactive imagination. He relates an anecdote about a picture of a sailboat that hung in his childhood home, which his mother told him would move if he stared at it long enough. And it did.

A few days after watching the Twilight Zone, I and a few friends went to a garage sale where we found a painting of a sailboat. I joked that if we stared at it long enough, it would move. And it did. There was nothing unusual about that on its own. It was an optical illusion.

But then other passersby who didn’t even hear the conversation started seeing it move. It moved the moment they saw it, as if it had never stopped.

I ran tests on that painting. There was nothing inherently magical about it. Then it occurred to me: the painting only moved after I told people it moved.

We got ahold of another picture of a sailboat. Similar, but not the exact same. We brought in one group of mortals to look at the boat, and we said “This boat will move if you look at it long enough.”

After an hour, a second group was brought in and we asked what they saw.

At a baseline of ten people per group, the boat would move very slightly, sliding across the picture. The result was imperceptible to mortals. We swapped group two out for halfbloods, and they saw the movement.

With increasing quantity of group one, there was an increasing quality of motion. The sails of the boat would fill and dip, and the waves would rock the boat. If you look at this table, you can observe the effects…

* * *

(Excerpt from journal Bible found in Camp Gilead break room.)

6/10/12

I was hoping Teresa wouldn’t beat Leo, but apparently such things are too much to hope for. I didn’t even realize it happened until he showed up at the reception building with his hands all maimed. I asked if he was okay and he told me he didn’t need my help, though with fewer words.

Mary, forgive me for thinking these things. I look at Leo and I think

Well, I SHOULD think of the prodigal son. The quintessential man fallen from God. I shouldn’t judge him so harshly for wandering off. I don’t know what he went through at that Camp Half-Blood. I mean just listen to the name. Sounds haunted just saying it.

It sucks that I feel so angry at him. When somebody’s going through a hard time, you gotta love them and you gotta care for them. In the end that’s all any of us are trying to do. Punishment is care, in a lot of ways. It’s how you know what you’re doing is wrong. We’re just looking out for him.

Anyway, I’m out of aloe, so now I’m using mouthwash. It doesn’t hurt as bad now, though the bleeding is still pretty heavy.

(Next to this passage, 2 Corinthians 1:7 is highlighted.)

* * *

(Found in pink flower print diary under Cabin 5 mattress, Camp Gilead.)

Dear diary,

I’m finished with one glove and I’m trying to find time to knit the other. Normally I slow down and enjoy the process, but the gloves he wears now are coming to pieces!

Something about that boy who was baptized this morning has his jimmies rustled. I sat next to the new guy this morning and he told me to stay away from him.

Odd. Real odd, even for him.

* * *

(Found in chicken coop, Camp Gilead.)

DAY 316

YEAH, I STILL DON’T TRUST HIM.

* * *

(Found in Nancy Bobofit’s pocket.)

Dear Jesus or God or Abraham or whatever,

My old math teacher useta say that if you feel real bad you should write it down insteada saying it so that’s what I’ll do. Names don’t even matter because this ain’t a real letter I’ll send to anybody. I’ll provably use it to keep track a my books.

A guy I saw here like five years ago came back and has a bunch of shit in his belt. Don’t know where he gets it but it’s exciting to have a partner in crime maybe. He went to some camp I heard about at yancy when I was going through this one kids clothes. Gary or whatever.

Funny I can barely remember his name. Actually that whole years fuzzy. My head hurts just tryna remember my math teacher. I know she liked me but that’s about it.

Ezra is still fuckin stupid as far as flirting goes. The only thing that could get his attention is if I shoved 2 halfs of a bible in my bra.

Like one testament in each boob. Hell yeah

INVENTORY  
1 Twilight eclipse (from that chick with the small nose)  
2 Weed (from chicken coop)  
1 box of Viagra (from dumpster behind chapel)

* * *

(Found slid under Cabin 1 door, Camp Half-Blood.)

Please get back to me about a course of action regarding the event that occurred at the ball. I can arrange for Clovis to retrieve lost memories. I just need your green light.

Will

* * *

(Found in a wastebasket in Cabin 1, Camp Half-Blood.)

Dear Thalia,

~~Hey, sis, how’s the Hunters? Things are going great in camp. Well, not great because Leo got kidnapped and it’s~~

~~I know I let you down but I think I need help~~

~~I’m afraid that~~

~~Please forgive me but~~

~~Sorry~~

(Remainder is smudged to illegibility.)

* * *

(Found under a pillow in Cabin 6, Camp Gilead.)

Everyone,

I don’t like starting these things off with exaggerations, but I’m basically fucked. If something happens to me, consider this my will. I’ll leave Festus to all of you at Camp Half-Blood. A metal dragon is way too bitchin’ to leave to only one person, and who knows when you’ll need him?

Jason,

To you I leave Buford, my table. Please remember to use Lemon Pledge, and if not, don’t put anything important in him. Like explosives. Or, I don’t know, a helmet. Actually if there’s a helmet lying around wear it. Consider that my last request.

Piper,

I took my toolbelt with me, but if you ever find my body you can have it. If not, go to the bunker and grab basically any gun in there. They all shoot celestial bronze bullets and frankly I’m shocked that anyone would pass up a magic shotgun.

Percy,

You are getting any empty coke bottles I left behind and my best pair of bolt cutters. Because even in death I cannot let that go.

Calypso,

Oh (smudged) crying

This was supposed to be a joke. Damn it. (Illegible.)

Nico,

(Illegible) to the last few days and I keep looping back to you. A lot of people (smudged) and I don’t treat you great either, but sometimes I think you’re a better person than I am. You’re scary sometimes but under the hood you’re (illegible) and nice and I’m scared one day I’ll open my own hood and there’s just nothing.

Fuck, they’re not gonna send this anyway

(Remainder is scribbled out.)

* * *

(Found in “shred” pile in Camp Gilead reception building.)

Dear Leo,

I know we don’t know each other that well, but I just want to make sure you’re okay.

I don’t know if they’ll let you read this. I hope they will. We’re doing our best to make this right, so just hang in there.

Sincerely,  
Nico di Angelo

* * *

(Found in Camp Half-Blood mailbox.)

Camp Gilead  
_Crafting God’s mouthpieces_

To whom it may concern,

After receiving and reviewing your letter, we have elected to not release your correspondences to your camper at this time. This was a very difficult decision to make, but it was made necessary due to these criteria:

  * Inappropriate camper behavior
  * Inappropriate letter content
  * Sender is not the camper’s legal guardian



As such, your letter will be held at the Camp Gilead office indefinitely. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,

Father Abraham Hill  
Camp Gilead Youth Pastor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we rope the Romans in. On the bright side, if CHB shuts down, we've always got New Rome. Right?
> 
> Keep an eye out for anything the gods don't want Nico to see. Their goals are very important to figure out, in-story and out.
> 
> There's a couple insights to how the Camp Gilead residents think. Ezra was an interesting one to write.
> 
> And Nancy, man. What can I even say.
> 
> Yep, that's it! Nothing else worth talking about in this chapter.


	6. Hallelujah, Hallelujah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh god I'm finally fucking back

Nico shadowed travelled face-first into a stone column. “Hey, Hazel,” he said, trying to play it cool.

Hazel was wearing full armor. He was wearing a black jacket. The light of the ceremonial fires bounced off her imperial gold, casting a strange glow around her. Nico was hardly visible, his black coat mixing with the shadows.

Hazel looked for the noise. She jumped when he found it. She fumbled with her spatha for a split second before really processing what she was looking at. “Nico! Good grief, you scared me. Where did all that blood come from?”

“What?” Nico touched his face. Blood was gushing from his nose down his chin. “Oh. Yikes.”

The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus hadn’t changed a bit since the last time Nico had set foot in it. The statue of Jupiter towered over the marble floor, gazing down. The purple toga was not a part of the idol itself, and honestly? Nico was pretty sure that it was meant to be naked. Looking at a giant icon of his uncle was awkward enough; knowing that some Roman had given it a massive dong was much worse.

Hazel exhaled deeply. “Sorry, but could you just… come forward a little? I think we’re alone here, but if some probatio strolls by…”

Nico was confused before realizing he looked like a disembodied bloody face in the darkness. That probatio would shit themselves. He snorted and stepped into the warm, soupy firelight. “You didn’t have to come out here. I could’ve handled this myself.”

“I think you’ll need moral support. Miss Lucretia can be very…” She trailed off. “Well, these people are _difficult_ , to put it lightly.”

Nico thought back to the last augur he’d met. “I get it.”

Hazel took out a handkerchief—a real cloth handkerchief—and offered it to him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Nico said. He turned down the hanky and wiped the blood off with his sleeve. “It’s not that much blood. Look, it’s already stopped.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m hearing all these horrible things about lawsuits and panic on the east coast—some of your people are in the hospital, Nico! They knew the risks, and they still got maimed trying to get away.” Hazel’s eyes were shiny. “I’ve—I’ve heard from everyone except you. Are you okay? Do you need a place to go?”

“I’m still fine.” Nico squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to see the look on his sister’s face. “Is that her?”

“Her” referred to the creaking of a door and a slow, distant tapping sound. An elderly woman in white robes hobbled out of the darkness at Jupiter’s feet. Her hair was straw yellow, shot through with white, and she leaned heavily on an old laurel cane. “Yes, that’s her,” Hazel said.

Nico strode forward, feeling the heavy plastic shift against his side. “Miss Lucretia? I need to speak with you.”

The elderly woman turned. Eyebrows raised, one eye bulging and ice blue. “Yes, dearie?” Her voice was like old oak doors.

“I’m Nico di Angelo, the person who needed those documents you checked out of the library.” He removed the plastic binder from his coat, flipped to the back and displayed the documents inside. “Huge chunks of this study are missing. Do you know why that is?”

Lucretia waved him away. “It was like that when I checked it out.”

“So some _other_ Roman destroyed the document.”

“Why, yes.”

“Some other Roman that, for some reason, wants to cover up the information written in this specific obscure study published in the 80s.”

“Why, yes.”

“Ma’am, pardon me, but I’ll have to call out your horseshit.”

Hazel coughed, trying to cover her embarrassment. Lucretia only wheezed. Nico wondered if he had given her a heart attack before realizing that she was laughing. “It’s alright, Miss Levesque, I’ve heard harsher language.” She turned to Nico. “As for you, Mister di Angelo, I’m not at liberty to discuss the specifics of what I have seen.”

Nico let go a long, slow breath. “This is a very serious matter, Miss Lucretia. The documents you’ve taken may be vital to recovering a valued Camp Half-Blood camper, and you’re a Roman politician—”

“Not a politician, dear, just an augur,” she interrupted. “Unlike some people, I value the separation of church and state.”

“Still. You’re a prominent Roman figure. Your roadblocking of this rescue mission is not going to look good on paper,” Nico snarled.

Lucretia’s bulging blue eye was shiny in the firelight—glass. “I’m not a bigot, dear boy, and you’d be wise not to call me such. All I am doing is following the will of the gods.”

“I don’t care what your plushies say—”

“Oh, goddamn it!” The old woman exclaimed, throwing her cane to the floor, making a loud CRACK that rang through the building. Both Underworld kids jumped back. “My grandson’s stupid gimmick is _not_ universal! I’ve been asked what happened to all the teddy bears ten times today and I’m sick of it. I’m not a haruspex! Gods!” Her glass eye bulged so hard it threatened to fall out.

Nico nodded, even though he didn’t quite get it. Hazel seemed to understand. “Miss Lucretia, what my brother meant to ask is if you know where those papers are,” she said loudly and slowly.

Lucretia groaned and bent over trying to get her cane. Nico picked it up and handed it over, keeping an arm’s length away from her in case she decided to swing her mood at his face instead of the floor. “I’m not senile, missy, despite all evidence otherwise. Lord Mars told me to burn a few pages before turning them over to you.”

“What?” Nico demanded.

“Lucretia!” Hazel said. “That was public property!”

“I’ll pay the library fee; I don’t give a shit! All I know is that the god of war popped into the temple and told me which papers to get rid of. I can’t question that.”

Nico glared. “And all you have to show for it is your word?”

“Burned the pages in that bowl over there,” Lucretia said, pointing to a ceremonial fire nearby. “If you care to sift through the ash, by all means be my guest.”

“What if you’re lying? How do I know if you’re not making up that whole story up?”

“I would never lie about divine will. Octavian lied. ‘Apollo says I’m going to save New Rome! Wheeeee!’” Lucretia exclaimed in a falsetto, waving her arms. “And guess where he ended up. Splattered all over the damn battlefield, I imagine.” She laughed bitterly.

Nico felt a twinge of guilt. He didn’t feel bad about indirectly killing Octavian, but he did feel a little bad for Lucretia. Or perhaps he was just upset that somebody was calling him out for his indifference. He didn’t want to dwell on which was the worse option. “I’m sorry about your grandson, but I’d like to know why Mars told you to destroy those papers.”

“That’s all the answers I have. It was the Athena girl who asked, wasn’t it? Ann something? A better question is why on Earth she needs a paper on theoretical sociodeiology for a rando rescue operation.”

“Stop avoiding the subject!” Nico protested.

Lucretia scoffed. “Fine. Mars told me to tell you to butt out of Camp Gilead—in more elegant terms, of course. He said something about damage control. A god is giving you an out, here, and I suggest you take it.”

Nico felt his eye twitch. “I’m not. One of us is in danger, and we have to get to him before something bad happens.”

The old woman shook her head. “I figured you’d say that. You seem like one of those odd types. You hate it when the gods tell you to take a quest and when they tell you to stay out of it, you jump on it. Boys like you make me wonder why I do _anything_ the gods ask. Ahaha! Have fun sifting through those ashes, you two!”

She laughed and halfway walked out of the temple before turning around.

“Er, by the way, how much _is_ that library fee?”

“That was their only copy, so over a hundred dollars,” Nico said smugly.

“Ah fuck,” Lucretia grumbled, pulling out her wallet.

* * *

 

Leo watched with bated breath.

Annabeth was standing in front of the reception desk. She must have shaken down some Aphrodite kid because Leo had never seen her pick up lipstick, much less apply this much makeup. She loudly chewed a wad of gum.

Only the back of Ezra’s head was visible, but he was probably confused. “I’m sorry, but we haven’t posted any job offers.”

“Oh, but if you haven’t, then what’s this?” Annabeth said, coyly sliding a slip of paper across the desk.

“…Ma’am, this is a tanning coupon.”

“Is it? I could’ve sworn I had the ad!” she said, leaning forward. Her already low-cut top slipped slightly lower.

Nancy mumbled under her breath, “Ohhh sweetie, that’s not gonna work.”

It sure didn’t. Ezra didn’t move from his spot. “Well, I can get you another application if you’re interested in Christian education. Do you have younger siblings?”

“Oh, yeah,” Annabeth said. Her eyes wandered blithely around the room before finding Leo. She held her gaze for a moment before looking away, trying to maintain her ditzy demeanor. “My stepmom is real interested. I have two brothers and she’s very concerned about them getting a good… Christian summer camp. Would it be too much trouble for you to show me around?”

There was a faint tapping noise as Ezra considered the notion.

“I guess not,” he said slowly. “I’ll get someone for you. Nancy! Can you come up here?”

“Hell yeah!” Nancy said, throwing her stack of paper at Leo. It burst and scattered on the floor. He stammered angrily before managing to latch his mouth shut. If he said something stupid, Annabeth would get kicked out. Even worse, if the staff figured out Annabeth was from Camp Half-Blood, Teresa would want Chiron’s horsey ass on a silver platter. The Mist would probably keep her from getting it, but she’d damn well try.

Nancy grabbed Annabeth by the arm and pulled her from the room.

Ezra sighed in relief and slouched forward. “I thought she would never leave.”

“Nancy or Anna—?” Leo caught himself a second too late.

“Either, but mostly Nancy.” Ezra sat in the empty back room chair Nancy had left and removed the box of tic-tacs. The candy crunched between his teeth. “Want one?”

Leo frowned at the offered box. “So… are you still mad?”

“Why would I be mad?” Ezra said without a trace of sarcasm.

Leo cringed. Great, Ezra didn’t remember. He could’ve gone without bringing up this shitshow. But Leo didn’t make mistakes in halves, especially when that mistake was a camaraderie-ruining conversation about your dark personal history. “You know. When I left? You seemed pretty upset?”

Ezra’s smile became strained. “…Eh. I got over it.”

“You got over it.”

“I mean, I don’t know what you’ve been up to while you were gone, but it doesn’t look like anything good. I’m just glad I didn’t get myself roped into it.”

Leo didn’t trust Ezra’s self-assessments as far as he could throw him.

But at least they addressed the elephant in the room before Chicken Man busted in.

The door hit the wall so hard Leo fell off out of his chair. Chicken Man was badly disheveled and horribly panicked. A jumble of chicken wire was caught on his pants leg, scratching the floor.

Ezra called into the front room: “Seriously? We were having a moment!”

Leo, from his seat on the floor, saw Chicken Man waving his arms. Then he recognized something—Chicken Man wasn’t just waving his arms. He was making clear signs. Leo wasn’t very good at sign language, but he did pick up “gone” and something that looked like “tree.”

“I’m sorry, can you—can you write it down or something?” Ezra said helplessly.

“He’s saying something is gone,” Leo shouted from the back room. “Maybe into the woods.”

Chicken Man made a fist, with his index finger and thumb extended, and pinched them together a few times.

“The… chickens?” Ezra said. “The chickens are gone. Do you need help?”

Chicken Man nodded and pointed at Leo.

Ezra shrugged. “I guess you’re up.”

So that’s how Leo got out of one uncomfortable situation and into another, more interesting uncomfortable situation.

Once they were safely in the woods:

“What the hell kind of bullshit?!” Leo shouted. “You knew sign language the whole time?”

Chicken Man snorted and kept trudging through the underbrush. They were in the still-wooded area of the camp. It was within the walls, but wasn’t bulldozed for reasons Leo didn’t know of or care about. This was the location of other oddities like the chapel and the chicken coop.

Leo jumped in front of him. “Hey! Stop avoiding me!”

Chicken Man let out a single chuckle before flipping him off.

“Why are you mad at me?”

He disregarded the question, instead choosing to make noises that Leo assumed was some sort of chicken mating call.

“Are you going to answer _any_ of my questions?” He had _so many_ questions. Like how he had gotten stuck in this hellhole, why he never spoke, and what was wrong with his arms because there was only one reason why anyone would wear long sleeves in June and that was it.

He made a vague noise and a “so-so” gesture. The sun was beginning to set, bathing the trees orange. Part of the fishhook-shaped New Jordan was nearby. The spray made the woods uncomfortably cold and humid. Chicken Man fished a white feather out of a bush. There was something familiar about the way he squinted at it.

“Have I met you before?” Leo wondered.

Chicken Man blew a raspberry and trundled into the bushes. Leo couldn’t tell if that meant yes or no.

He jumped over the bush and ran to catch up. This guy was like, six-foot-something. He could outpace Leo without even trying. “Holy shit, I can’t believe you don’t overheat in that sweatshirt. So what’s your name? Other than ‘chicken man.’”

Chicken Man only sighed.

“Okay, so no name. Can you not talk at all?”

He raised his hand to his throat.

“Guess not, huh.” Leo huffed. “How’d that happen?”

His silent companion finally signed something Leo fully understood: _I DON’T LIKE TALKING ABOUT IT._

“Yeah, you don’t talk about a lot of things.”

There was a brief silence. Leo reached for his camp necklace: another thing he’d managed to keep. He didn’t wear it often, since the cord was the just the right length to dangle from his neck when he leaned forward. Annoying on its own. Much worse for someone who handled spinning machinery. He’d gotten stuck once, and was turning blue by the time Nico freed him.

Leo rolled the single glass bead between his fingers and smiled sadly.

Chicken Man suddenly slapped him on the back of the head.

 _JACKASS,_ he signed. _IF I DIDN’T HAVE TO, I WOULDN’T TALK TO YOU AT ALL. FOCUS. FIND THE CHICKEN._ He made his way towards another white-feathered bush.

Leo rubbed the developing bruise. “Glad to see we’ve already moved on to terms of affection.”

* * *

 

Camp Gilead was a nice place to leave your kids if you were okay with putting them in prison.

Annabeth spent her whole visit in a perpetual state of low-level discomfort. For one, she was wearing makeup. She didn’t want to wear makeup, but she didn’t want to be recognized either. If the lawyer from the other day were here the jig would be up.

And Camp Gilead felt like a sanitized version of the camp she’d grown up with. There were no distant clangs of metal. No whiffs of overripe strawberries and goat fur. No long blue horizon.

Instead, there was only faint speech and a quiet pulse of music. The air smelled faintly of mosquito coils and pine. The horizon was short, blocked by high curved walls. A tower rose in the middle of it all.

Annabeth recognized this layout. It was a panopticon.

An ideal panopticon would be perfectly round, lined with cells with the barred doors facing inward, towards the tower. Only one guard was needed in the tower. Though it would be impossible for the one man to watch the entire prison, the idea of being watched would theoretically keep the prisoners in line.

The camp wasn’t a perfect panopticon, but the notion that they had tried to build one was disturbing. She wanted Leo out of there as fast as possible.

Nancy swept her into a swelter of people. There were bleachers, but everyone was crowded on the floor. Annabeth was crushed between Christian kids a few times, leaving pink smudges on their green t-shirts. They finally emerged near the raised platform the podium was seated on. The redheaded boy at the front desk was now seated, upside down, at the foot of the platform stairs, with his back on the floor. “Hey, Ezra!” Nancy called.

Ezra looked in the wrong direction before finally finding them. “Hi Nancy. Is Ann having a good time?”

Annabeth gave him a quick thumbs up. “It’s... sure interesting.”

“Great! I’ll be praying for you to show up next year,” he said, clasping his hands together.

“Be sure to turn right side up before you do, otherwise you’re gonna send those prayers to the devil,” Nancy teased.

“That’s not how it works.” Ezra said, though he climbed onto the raised platform, standing up with his arms over his head as he said it. “But it does help to be higher up.”

“God’s got shitty coverage?”

“Yeah, he’s on T-Mobile.”

Nancy mounted the stairs and threw an arm around Ezra’s shoulders. “So... tonight it’s gonna be my turn to clean the hardware shed, and I was thinking you could... ‘help’ me.” She leaned in and strained the word “help” in such a way that Annabeth could almost hear someone scream “SEX” across the room.

Ezra furrowed his eyebrows. “I thought it’s Pam’s turn to clean the hardware shed.”

“But—”

“And she already _did_ that. After this, it’s going to be lights out. What do you want me to do, sneak out to meet you?” He laughed.

Nancy looked like a deflated balloon. “Yeah, that’s... silly.”

Annabeth was caught somewhere between secondhand embarrassment and an emotion that could only be described as “same.”

The gym lights went down.

All parties in the room went quiet. All eyes immediately swiveled to the platform—bar Annabeth, who wondered what on earth was going on for a hot second.

A tall, bearded man strode silently onto the stage. He leaned into the podium’s microphone. “Good afternoon!” he said, in a powerful, clearly trained voice.

“Good afternoon, Father Abraham!” everyone said. Even Nancy, who Annabeth guessed was the more rebellious of them, mouthed the words. A vague but inescapable feeling of horror settled on her.

“I hope you’ve all had a good day. We’re going to start our afternoon worship off with ‘The Light of the World Is Jesus.’ Please stay for the entire service—I have something very special to show you all.”

The conclusion of Abraham’s sentence was nearly drowned out by the incoming music. It came in loudly, from all sides. It pitched and rolled around the gym, and so did the crowd.

 _The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin,_  
_The Light of the world is Jesus!_  
_Like sunshine at noonday, His glory shone in,_  
_The Light of the world is Jesus!_

Annabeth struggled to glean anything useful from the encounter. She’d never quite been to a church service like this—her stepmother’s congregation was fifty percent over fifty. She couldn’t slip out without Nancy and Ezra taking notice. Well, maybe just Ezra. Nancy didn’t seem too persistent. But as polite as Ezra was, he was the enemy’s lapdog, and she had to be careful.

After the opening hymn, things calmed down. Boring. However, there was a rather grand phenomenon at work. A room filled with over a hundred middle-to-high schoolers had gone entirely silent. Their eyes and ears were tuned into what they thought of as the words of God.

And Annabeth thought “neat” for about a second before trying to exit.

She wove through the crowd quickly, honing in on the EXIT sign. Annabeth was standing no less than three feet from the door when she realized what was blocking her path, and blanched.

Goddamn it, it was the lawyer.

It was too late to back away. The lawyer had taken notice—Annabeth being the only moving person in the crowd. She peered up at her. “This door is closed,” she sniffed.

“Sorry, I was just... looking for the bathroom,” Annabeth said, trying not to make eye contact.

The lawyer looked intensely at her, searching. “...It’s on the other side of the building.”

“Thank you.”

 _Thou Christ of burning, cleansing flame,_  
_Send the fire, send the fire, send the fire!_  
_Thy blood bought gift today we claim,_  
_Send the fire, send the fire, send the fire!_  
_Look down and see this waiting host,_  
_Give us the promised Holy Ghost;_  
_We want another Pentecost,_  
_Send the fire, send the fire, send the fire!_

Four wailing stanzas as Annabeth crossed the room to escape the lawyer’s scrutiny. She sidled back up near the stage.

A stray balloon was being bounced around at the back and looking at it provoked a stray thought that Annabeth had been trying to push down from the moment she’d heard the words “Christian camp.” She’d scoured Daedalus’s laptop, hoping the old inventor had witnessed some answers, and only got a vague refences to some study in the eighties that Annabeth prayed would prove her wrong.

Luckily that all went away when Abraham spoke. “Children, I’d like to introduce you to someone in need of the healing light of God.” He beckoned at someone standing at the base of the stage. Annabeth’s throat constricted. Should she hope for Leo to pop up on the stage, so she could whisk him out here? Or was she about to see something horrific happen?

In any case, it didn’t matter, because it wasn’t Leo.

Instead, a small girl climbed onto the stage. She had to come up to Annabeth’s shoulder at the tallest. Abraham put his hand on the top of her head. “This is Pam,” he said. “She has severe hearing loss due to an injury she sustained in infancy.”

Abraham went on to explain how Pam was dropped on her head as a baby. He explained, in detail, how her parents didn’t notice anything was wrong until she was three years old, when her grandmother had a stroke and the doctors noticed she wasn’t speaking or responding to her name. He poured on the emotion as he described how she didn’t learn what music sounded like until she was five and got her hearing aids. Pam herself was crying slightly, but not in cue to the monologue—it didn’t seem she could hear it.

The crowd was obsessed.

All were fixed on the stage. Tears streamed from almost unblinking eyes. Some were sobbing. Annabeth herself could feel her throat constricting as the crowd was drawn into the black hole Abraham had created.

“But,” the preacher said, and they all looked up exultantly. “The power of the Holy Spirit is here tonight. It is within these walls, and it is within you. Tonight, Pam has the lock. All of you...”

Abraham glanced directly down at Annabeth, the only dry eye in the house.

“...Have the key,” he finished slowly. “Let’s go down and meet them, Pam.”

_Lo! He comes, with clouds descending,_

Some sung. As Pam went down the stairs, some placed hands on her, speaking in languages Annabeth did not. “God is speaking to us tonight,” Abraham insisted. “He is coming to us!” Annabeth’s heart seemed to claw at her chest, as if demanding to face Abraham itself.

_Once for our salvation slain;_

Some pressed Annabeth forward to place hands as well. She couldn’t tell if Ezra or Nancy were in that crowd. She felt lightheaded. God—oh, they heard him, they heard him, speaking softly and terribly. “I hear him, I hear him!” “He’s coming!” “Oh, oh, oh!” And there was screaming as though someone’s throat were cut.

_Thousand thousand saints attending_

She knew what empathy was. It was that fundamental thing that enabled human cooperation. If your friend got angry, you were compelled to get angry too. This is how you make a civilization. She was drowning in it.

_Swell the triumph of his train:_

She was a wretch inside the belly of a howling beast and she heard nothing.

_Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!_

The head of the beast, from his podium, smiled and did not stop her.

_Christ the Lord returns to reign._

The people were gone.

Annabeth staggered away from Sunday service. They were standing outside the gym; it was now the top of the hour. The whole affair was scarcely fifty minutes.

“Wasn’t that great?” said Ezra. “Wasn’t it just great?” His eyes were shining with happiness. In spite of the screaming, in spite of the crying, he and many of his compatriots seemed calmer afterwards. In their minds, they had tapped into a higher being, they had tapped into each other.

They were not in danger.

“It was fine.”

But all she could think of was that fucking balloon.

* * *

 

Nico materialized in the parking lot directly behind Annabeth. “Hey.”

“Holy shit!” Annabeth swore before hitting Nico in the nose with her elbow.

He clutched his nose in surprise. “Seriously?” he demanded, blood coming out between his fingers. Nico opened his mouth to say something else, but closed it when he saw Annabeth’s face.

She looked—well, she looked like she’d seen a ghost. Her makeup was smudged, her face was pale, and paper confetti was stuck in her hair. “Sorry. I’m just... jumpy. What are you doing here?”

The parking lot was small, mostly taken up by buses, and at the very edge of the compound next to the wall. The sun had descended redly below the concrete, leaving it dark and cool. “If you want to get technical, _I’m_ not pursuing Leo, so I’m allowed to be here.”

Annabeth huffed. “Fair, but I wouldn’t push it any further than that. Any updates?”

“The good news is I have your study.” Nico removed the binder from his coat and handed it to her.

Annabeth leafed through the pages too fast to really read them. “What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is part of that study is gone, and it’s probably the relevant part.”

“What? What happened?”

“The augur says Mars ordered her to burn those pages.”

“Damn it. Goddamn it.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t see Leo. On top of that, I think that preacher knows why I’m here.”

“Well... we can send someone else,” Nico suggested. “We have to try something.”

“I’m not sure if we should.”

He swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”

“I...” Annabeth paused. “Never mind. It’s stupid. Abraham might not have even been looking at me—it was so dark in that gym I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.”

Nico had a feeling it wasn’t stupid, but he knew better than to press the issue. “Okay. So what do we do now—?”

“Do you hear something?”

They were quiet. In the distance, it sounded like someone was coughing.

Nico slowly approached the sound. It came from a small figure under a parking lot lamp post. He held the handle at his hip tightly.

Coming closer, he gradually got more uncomfortable. The figure came into focus as a small girl in a green t-shirt sitting on the asphalt. Her face was buried in her hands. Nico looked at Annabeth questioningly.

Annabeth tapped the girl on the shoulder. She looked up. “Who’re you?” she mumbled.

“I’m Ann. This is my friend. saw you at the gym. Are you okay?” Annabeth said loudly and clearly.

The girl wiped her eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Do you need help? You shouldn’t be in the parking lot at this hour.”

“No. I’m fine.” She stood and walked out of the light. The top of her head did not reach Nico’s shoulder. “Thank you. What’s your name?”

“I’m Ann,” Annabeth repeated.

“No, your real name,” the girl said slowly, like they were both stupid.

“Her what?” Nico said.

“The one she uses when she’s not spying on us, jackass.”

Nico blanched. “... _Excuse me?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *pained wheezing*
> 
> Okay I just went back to school recently so give me a sec
> 
> This one's kind Nico/Annabeth-heavy. Not much happens except buildup and me trying to get everyone in the right place at the right time.
> 
> Augur Lucretia is based off Every Eccentric Mentor Character you've seen in your damn life. She's somewhat bitter about her grandson's premature death. Whether it's out of genuine grief or irritation at having to come out of retirement remains to be seen.
> 
> Behold! Chicken Man speaks! Or at the very least, offers communication that isn't conveyed via facial expressions and grunts. But that doesn't mean you should stop paying attention to things like that.
> 
> The healing scene was based heavily off sequences in Jesus Camp and certain passages in Brave New World. I think it gets a little purple but I've stared at it long enough.
> 
> Pam is based off a character in a book I attempted to write a few years ago. That book is scrapped, but the idea of a deaf girl in a corrupt Christian organization lives on through her. I hope she doesn't come off as too obnoxious here; her better moments are in the next chapter. I intentionally gave her the name "Pam" to evoke thoughts of The Final Pam. Make of that what you will.
> 
> That being said updates are going to slow down from here. I know I was going at breakneck speed for chapters 3-5, but I was on a road trip and didn't have much else to do than write. Now that school's back my writing time will be limited to whatever precious time I have.
> 
> So please kudos, comment, and theorize, for that is my bread and butter.


	7. An Evil That I Have Seen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Key characters finally get together and fucking communicate.

Nico had seen some shit, but being cussed out by a toddler was new.

The little girl had stopped crying almost immediately—because that crying had been histrionics, he realized. She put herself right where they could find her and started making noise so they would investigate. They’d been lured into a trap.

“Did I pronounce that right?” she said earnestly.

Annabeth struggled to cover their asses. “You must have us confused with someone else.”

“No, I don’t! You’re from that other camp. He told me they would send people,” the girl insisted.

He and Annabeth exchanged glances. “Who told you that?” Nico said carefully.

“That’s not important. What’s important is that you tell me what your real names are _right now_.”

He looked at Annabeth. “How about we sort out this misunderstanding?” Annabeth said. “Would that be good?”

The girl puffed out her cheeks. “How about I’m a little girl who knows you’re trespassing, and I can scream and scream, and Abraham’s gonna take you out back and blow your brains out, and I’m gonna laugh?”

Nico leaned in to Annabeth. “Should we kill her?”

“No, Nico. A monster would’ve attacked us by now. This is just a creepy nine year old.”

“I’m eleven!” the girl said indignantly.

Annabeth sighed and gave Nico a sideways glance. She mouthed, “Mist.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she said to the girl. “I’m here… alone… and I’m just coming back from a job interview.”

Mist manipulation was tricky and Nico wasn’t sure if it was going to work.

It almost did. The girl squinted and looked back and forth between him and Annabeth. “Uh…”

Annabeth nodded encouragingly.

But then the girl shook her head. “Wait. He’s wearing a black jacket against a midnight blue sky!”

Annabeth blinked in surprise and turned to Nico, who had about enough of this. “Why do you want our names anyway?” he demanded.

“I need to see if you’re on the list.”

They exchanged glances. “What list?” Annabeth said.

The girl stuck out her arm. There was writing there, in black marker. Nico’s mouth went dry as the letters resolved into words.

PRAETOR REYNA  
M. KAHALE  
DAKOTA J.  
MAXIMA O.  
AUG. LUCRETIA

“Where did you get this list?” Annabeth looked like she’d turned a corner and encountered a spider the size of a shoe.

“I have a friend,” the girl muttered.

“How does he know all this?”

“I don’t know!” she said. “I was hoping you’d know. Is it... witness protection or something? He really needs one of these people to come here and meet him.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Probably to bail him out.”

“Who is he?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you that unless you’re on the list.”

Nico’s head spun. Someone on the inside of Camp Gilead had gotten into New Rome, figured out who was in charge, and somehow this vital information had trickled down to a deaf five year old. It couldn’t be Leo. He wouldn’t know who Lucretia was.

“What’s your _name?_ ” the girl said, tapping her wrist.

_Think think think. Can’t think. Use instincts._

A minute later:

“I’ve heard of you doing some questionable stuff, but none of those rumors can match up to actually seeing you duct tape a deaf kid to a tree,” Annabeth said.

The girl was persistently kicking him in the leg. She might’ve been aiming for his nuts, but she couldn’t reach that far. “Fire!” she shouted. “Fiiire—!” He taped her mouth shut.

“I just need to come up with a game plan for dealing with this. It’s not like I’m going to leave her here all night.”

“Are you sure that tree is strong enough?”

It was a sapling as big around as Nico’s arm. But what could she do, tear it out of the ground? “It’s fine; I won’t take long.”

Annabeth jumped in the car. Nico stayed outside. She rolled down the driver’s window. “Get in.”

“I want to check on Leo.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Is that safe?”

“I don’t know.” Nico wasn’t sure if going home was a better option. A good quarter of campers were packing up and heading for New Rome. By tomorrow, the cops might search the place, and with the Mist apparently not doing its job, gods only knew what they would see.

Annabeth, like a sensible person, wanted to check for herself. Nico was afraid to look.

At least he had a slim chance of saving Leo.

“Just go on ahead,” he said. “I’ll catch up.”

“Wait.” Annabeth removed a beat-up baseball cap from her glovebox. “Invisibility cap. There’s cameras everywhere.”

“Thanks.”

He was about halfway to the cabins when he heard a noise that made him think he’d finally gone nuts.

“…Is that a freaking chicken?” he muttered to himself.

* * *

 Leo didn’t attempt to get up from the singed pillow.

Abraham plucked a couple of baby wipes out of a plastic package. “Now that wasn’t so bad,” he muttered. The wipes came off rust red.

 _Maybe not for you,_ Leo thought bitterly. His wounds stung like hell.

Abraham tossed the bloody paper in the wastebasket. “I’ll give you a minute to recover.” Leo glared. Abraham spoke like he’d just given him a shot, not beaten him within an inch of his life.

But, whatever. If the crazy old man wanted to leave, Leo wouldn’t stop him.

Once he did, Leo coughed. It wasn’t from the smoke coming from the burning sheets under him, though that didn’t smell good. He just needed to rattle his lungs to make sure they still worked. They did. Thank Zeus for small mercies. Or should it be God? Zeus was unlikely to be merciful to anyone, but Leo tasted bile when he considered thanking Abraham’s god for anything.

He gently wrapped an arm around the pillow and brought it further down, closer to his chest, propping up his damaged back. Bending his spine even a degree was hard. He whimpered. “Ow.”

The pillow didn’t accomplish much, but having it in his grip was a psychological comfort he couldn’t discount. If he didn’t let himself look for something to dull the pain he might end up growling at people and living in a chicken coop.

He almost fell asleep before Ezra popped in with the peroxide. “Knock, knock.”

“What now?” Leo sighed.

“Medical assistance.”

“Goody gumdrops.” He tried to pretend Ezra couldn’t see him cuddling his pillow.

Ezra edged forward and began disinfecting. Leo winced softly, which didn’t escape the other’s notice. “You want to talk?”

Ezra poured peroxide onto a deep wound. “Yeah,” Leo said through gritted teeth.

“So what’s Camp Half-Blood like?”

He groaned loudly and exasperatedly. “Really? Right now?”

“Yes, right now. Unless it was really that bad.”

Great. Now Leo had to figure out how to describe a magic summer camp while in excruciating pain, or Ezra would assume he was abused. Awesome.

“It’s nice,” he started. “Uh… there’s a lake. It’s calm, but it’s so big it just swallows everything. You can be standing on the other side of camp and the horizon’s still shiny blue. There’s no walls. Means there’s more sun.”

Ezra frowned. “How do they get by without walls?”

Well, that wasn’t completely true. The camp border could be called a wall. But it wasn’t the same thing Gilead had. “I don’t know. We just do. There’s a strawberry farm. If the wind is coming from the right direction you can smell it.” Leo’s nails began to dig into his palms. “There’s a workshop. I spend a lot of time there.”

“I imagine you would.” Ezra began laying down gauze. “Did you meet anyone?”

“There’s Jason. He looks like Captain America, except he has this scar on his lip. There’s Piper. She’s the reason I learned how to make vegetarian tacos. And there’s Annabeth, and Annabeth’s boyfriend, and Haz—well, I guess I didn’t meet her at camp—and there’s Nico—”

“No, silly, I meant did you _meet_ anyone? Last I saw you, you got heartsick over anything that looked remotely like a woman.”

Leo’s throat tightened. “Um. One.”

“What’s her name?” Ezra sounded excited.

“Calypso. We’re not together anymore.” Leo somehow managed to feel even worse.

“Oh.”

Ezra was silent for the rest of the affair.

“We’re done,” he said afterwards. “You want to go back to the cabin?”

Leo rolled onto his side. “I just need to rest for a second.”

“It’s all good.”

He’d only meant to catch his breath, but he drifted off as if on Benadryl.

* * *

 Nico was silent. The mosquitos around him were not.

His hand hit his cheek audibly. He used to attract bugs like—well, like a dead body, but Hazel had suggested wearing some minty deodorant or perfume because morticians rubbed that under their noses. That usually helped. But the insects were so thick in this part of camp he couldn’t breathe.

He’d swept the whole camp. Cabins and main buildings lay in the east valley opposite the wooded hill. Annabeth was right, there was an absurd number of security cameras. A mosquito coil burned on each of seven porches.

There were two very big buildings. The gym and the cafeteria. The gym windows were too high to look into, but the cafeteria was alien. Wooden picnic table were placed end to end on one side. One table was placed in a corner apart from the rest. This was painted black.

There were a lot of posters, but Nico only read “I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME” before moving on.

Now he was going into the wooded corner of the camp. Nico wondered why solely this part was allowed to be woods while everything else was bulldozed. Especially since it was a bug breeding ground.

But hey, he said he was going to check on Leo, and he’d feel really stupid if he shadow travelled home empty-handed.

Here’s a list of things Nico found in the forest.

A small clearing around a cross. It was one of those big white crosses with pointy ends that you see in the distance while driving down the highway. Weird seeing one up close. Nico wasn’t sure how he hadn’t seen it until he was standing right next to it.

Really weird.

Time to leave.

Later, he saw a light between the trees. He approached it cautiously in case there was someone there. Nico didn’t know if that weird kid had been telling the truth about Abraham shooting trespassers and he didn’t want to find out.

A year ago, he never would have thought he’d be praying to run into Leo.

The light was cast by a campfire, right next to a chicken coop in dire need of a paint job. Four chickens were in the coop, checked out for the night. A bubbling metal pot was hung over the flame. There was a crudely split log lying next to the fire, apparently for sitting purposes. A couple worn-out books and potholders were set there.

Nico walked around on tiptoe, but after a while it seemed there was no one around.

He took a closer look at the objects on the bench. The potholders were round and knitted to look like watermelon slices. One book was an ASL dictionary (property of Pamela Darner, whoever that was). The other book was a trashy romance novel, if the cover was any indication (what was that beefcake in the back even doing, humping the twink’s shoulder? What the fuck was going on?).

The synopsis of _But... You’re a Gaul_ , by Julius Oswald:

 _Cynbel_ _was the bravest fighter at his first battle—which isn’t saying much, because at his first battle everyone else was drunk and he was captured anyway. Trapped in the home of the centurion Sextilius_ okay he couldn’t do this.

Nico used one of the fruity potholders to open the pot. Purple eggs bounced in the water next to a dye pouch.

A wooden storage chest lay next to the coop. He opened that too. Curiously, there were no tools inside, only blankets that lined the chest in such a way that suggested a makeshift

Wait.

Someone was here.

A tall, hairy figure cloaked in a shabby sweatshirt marched through the trees into the clearing. He held a large bundle on his back. His blue eyes at first were glazed, but slowly sharpened when he noticed the open box. Nico slowly tiptoed away.

The figure looked over the scene but looked right through Nico.

He shrugged and sat down on the log.

Nico got out of there.

After running through the woods long enough for the tall figure to lose his trail, he stopped to catch his breath. That was one hell of a scare. New plan: search whatever remaining buildings there were _fast_ and then go deal with the kid before anyone could notice.

(Of course, Nico’s plans rarely worked out, but having one made him feel better.)

Nico kept walking until he reached the far west of the camp. A steeple rose through the trees, connected to a church that looked older than every other building at this camp. The door was ajar, and he tentatively peeked inside.

The church was pitch black inside, but for the faint moonlight shining through its stained glass window. The pews were empty except a folded newspaper on the very front one. Faint spots of color illuminated the floor. It was like a very small, musty disco.

Above the platform where the preacher would stand, there was a balcony. Nico didn’t venture there, but he felt strangely distressed seeing it. It dredged up a memory of Italy. Babies being baptized at a balcony like that. Now Nico had the urge to punch himself in the face, which wasn’t an unfamiliar emotion, but still palpable. Associating something so intimately familiar with enemy territory felt gross. It was like finding a rat in your underwear drawer.

He swallowed the urge to cough. The stale air in his lungs felt itchy.

The doors behind him creaked and he jumped out of his skin. Nico turned.

At first, he was confused. What was his ex-boyfriend doing standing outside the church door? Then his brain filled in more than blonde hair. The man in the door was taller and wearing obnoxious sunglasses. The colored light from the stained glass seemed brighter, and it cast patterns on his face. It was an unsettling, otherworldly light.

Great. It was his ex’s dad.

“The moon shines full on  
This ugly building as I  
Talk to some goth kid,” he recited. “Hasn’t anyone told you it’s dangerous to skulk around at night?”

“You haven’t left me another option,” Nico grumbled.

Apollo opened the doors wider and stood right in the middle, barring Nico from exiting. He did not make any move to enter. “I heard what Athena said to you. So now you’ve spoken to two gods in as many days. Well, two gods in one day, since it was after midnight when she got your attention.”

“Did Athena send you to kill me?” The way his day was going, Nico half-hoped she did.

“Actually, no. I’m here to help you.”

* * *

  _Leo’s dreams could not decide on subject matter._

 _Right now, he was on the ship floating over a small town in California, only able to watch as the inevitable prepared to happen. The snooty centurion the Romans had chucked on deck was making a point to inspect every barrel of gunpowder. He reminded Leo of red state politicians because he had a vague Southern drawl when he got annoyed, which was often. “What is it that you_ do _for these people?” he said while critically eyeing a ballista._

 _Leo chuckled, trying not to seem as offended as he was. “What do I_ do? _I built a freakin’ flying boat; what else do you want from me?”_

_“I mean in a combat situation.” He rapped the metal side of the Argo II. “You don’t have a weapon.”_

_“Is that a question or a threat?” Leo asked as he eyed the sword dangling from the other’s belt._

_The centurion smiled, which looked more like a dog baring its teeth. “I’m merely curious. I would assume you have some type of magic.”_

_Considering how on edge he seemed, Leo did not want to combust in front of him. This guy might stab him and call it self defense. “Yeah, baby, watch this.”_

_Leo did that trick where it looks like you broke your thumb._

_The other guy was not impressed._

_Something must have decided to wear Leo’s skin as a dress, because now he was walking away without thinking about walking away. Mindless pacing was not a new development. But now he was going straight for the ballista and he couldn’t stop._

_The noise swallowed him up._

_A reprieve. Nico was sitting on boxes in the bunker. “Get off those, man, cardboard’s fragile,” Leo advised._

_“I’m light.”_

_“Well, you shouldn’t be. Do I need to pack you box lunches? You’ve been spending so much time in here I’m surprised Solace isn’t jealous.” He oiled a hinge on the door he was working on._

_Nico was quiet for a minute._

_“What is that?” Nico said suddenly._

_“This?” Leo jerked a thumb at the person-sized metal box next to him. “This is a cardboard baler. Apparently strawberry sales are going down and Chiron needs some windfall, so I’m gonna sell this baby to the highest bidder.” It wasn’t the most exciting thing he could be building, but now his knowledge of hydraulics was expanded. Who knew cardboard balers could exert that much force?_

_Wait._

_“Oh, jeez, is he actually jealous?”_

_“No.” Nico paused. “Actually—I wish he_ were _jealous.”_

_“Is that your fetish?”_

_“No.”_

_“Is that your sexual fetish—?”_

_“_ No, _” Nico said firmly, and Leo took that as his signal to stop. “Will’s great. Really great. So great it makes me sick. He’s just so perfect it bothers me.”_

_“Like, leave some for the rest of us, right?” He threw Nico a bottle of cleaning fluid. “Can you help me wipe this thing down?”_

_“Exactly,” Nico said, spritzing the solution on a rag. “Sometimes I just want to reach into him and scoop out whatever makes him so amazing. That’s awful, but it’s how it is.”_

_Leo cleaned the outside while Nico cleaned the inside. “Sounds like you and him need to have a talk about it. He’s probably got flaws too, he’s just been managing them better. I mean, the talk might not go well, but whatever happens is gonna be better than letting the issue fester.”_

_“But what if we break up over it?”_

_“In my experience with love, if you break up so easily, it wasn’t worth holding on in the first place.” Leo mashed buttons on the side of the machine. “Anything is better than a relationship that’s overstayed its welcome. Though that part is more secondhand experience.”_

_“Hm. Thanks for the advice.”_

_“No problem. Of course, you could also kill him and take over his life, The Talented Mr. Ripley-style.”_

_“Hey, I’m jealous, but I don’t want to teach his sex ed classes.”_

_Leo snorted. “‘Hey, kids, if you’re like me, you use protection with your partners! If you’re like me, also, you’re wearing Will Solace’s skin,’” he said in his best Nico voice._

_He expected laughter, but all he heard was a bloodcurdling scream._

_Leo dashed around the side of the cardboard baler. The door was closed and Nico was nowhere in sight. A frantic banging rang out. “Leo? Leo?!” he cried._

_Leo tried to undo the door latch, but it was jammed. “Nico? Are you okay in there?”_

_“I don’t know, the—the door closed behind me and the thing just came down!”_

_“Shit!” Leo looked accusingly around the bunker. Several Hephaestus kids and a few Athena’s were staring at him. “Who did this?”_

_A couple grey-eyed kids looked down sheepishly._

_“You could’ve killed him! If the compressor wasn’t designed to stop before hitting the floor, he would’ve been crushed!” He slapped the door. “Nico, can you Nightcrawl out of there or something?”_

_“Crushed?!” Hearing Nico panic was rare. He sounded like he was retching?_

_“What the—are you okay?”_

_“Let me the fuck out of here!” Something was seriously wrong. “I can’t breathe!”_

_Shit shit shit. Leo fumbled for a hammer, but the shaft he’d thought was a handle had a hand at the end and he found himself holding his mother’s corpse._

_Her blackened lips cracked. “Why would you do this to us?” she gasped. “Why would you do this,_ mijo? _”_

_And behind her he saw Nico suffocated, limbs stuck out at all the wrong angles, and Jason with a big hole where his stomach should be, and an anonymous splatter of meat that’s lying face-down in the blood that floods the uncertainty of floor and ceiling and Nico’s banging on the walls and Leo’s banging on the walls screaming for someone to fucking help him but there’s a wall between himself and everyone else, and they’re laughing, and everyone’s bodies and the bones just stretch to infinity and there is no end to people bodies around him forever_

He woke up.

* * *

 

Nico narrowed his eyes. “Why do you want to help?”

Apollo looked faux offended. He put a hand to his chest. “Can’t I offer a helping hand without ulterior motives?”

“No.”

“...Yeah, that’s fair,” he admitted. “Unfortunately, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t discuss those motives publicly.”

“You could discuss them privately if you actually came in the building,” Nico said. Apollo was still holding the church doors open, but he stood motionless before the threshold, choosing to instead talk across the room.

He scoffed. “I may be a risk-taker, but I don’t have a death wish.” Before Nico could ask what he meant by that, he continued: “Here’s the deal. You misinterpreted Athena a little. The other Olympians don’t want you to set foot in this camp, period. As soon as you walk out of here, you’ll get struck by lightning or turned into a mole vole or... some other horrible thing will happen.”

“Does that apply to just me?” Nico asked. “Wait. Is Annabeth going to be okay?”

Apollo winced. “Maybe?”

“ _Maybe_? You’re a god of prophecy, how do you not—”

“The only discussion I’ve heard on the Camp Gilead topic was about you. You’re their big worry. But that’s not the point. The point is, if you walk out of this camp, you’ll end up dead or worse.”

Nico sighed. Great, could he go one summer without almost getting killed? “Is there an ‘unless’ here?”

“Yes, there is! That’s where yours truly comes in. I’m the only god who’s supporting you right now. And you can have my blessing to escort Leo Valdez out of here.” He pushed his sunglasses down and winked.

“If...”

Apollo smiled grimly and held out his hands. A gleaming bronze dagger appeared between them.

“Do you see this knife? It’s for Abraham. Kill him, and bring his heart to me.”

Before Nico could answer, a door opened behind him.

* * *

 Leo rolled over to go back to sleep and fell off the log.

Log?

He blinked his eyes open. Someone must have moved him in his sleep, because the stars were looking down on him.

Moaning, he sat up. It was dark, his shirt was on backwards, and he was sitting in the grass. Leo looked to the side and was greeted by the sight of four clucking chickens—which was when he realized where he was and who must have brought him here.

Leo looked to his other side and saw Chicken Man calmly stirring a boiling pot with a spoon. He spooned a colored egg from the pot, blew on it, and quickly stuffed it in his sweatshirt pocket as to keep it from burning him. Upon noticing Leo was awake, his expression tensed again. But regardless, he fished out another colored egg, blew on it, and held it out expectantly.

Leo got to his feet and slowly, precariously walked towards Chicken Man. The eggshell was wet and dyed purple, and the dye rubbed off onto his fingers.

Now, Leo didn’t like eggs very much, but his stomach had been crying for food all day. He ate the colored egg before Chicken Man could do anything to object. The hotness settled in his chest, and when he sighed a short puff of steam left his mouth.

Chicken Man was nonplussed by this turn of events and kept dispensing eggs for the both of them.

The four chickens that Leo had helped rescue were checked out for the night. “Did you ever find the fifth one?” he asked through a mouthful of egg.

Chicken Man shook his head as he sat down on the log.

“Why did you haul me out here, then? Can’t hardly find anything in this darkness.”

 _I NEED TO TALK TO YOU,_ he signed. His fingers were dark from the dye and he wore fresh purple gloves.

“Oh really? Then—”

 _ENOUGH WITH THE MUTE JOKES YOU—_ he made a sign Leo didn’t understand.

“Okay, okay. What needs talking about?”

_THIS MAY COME AS A SHOCK BUT I DON’T LIKE YOU._

“It doesn’t.”

_THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT. DO YOU WANT TO BE HERE?_

Leo scoffed and rubbed his wrists. “Does it look like I want to be here?”

_A SURPRISING MANY PEOPLE SAY YES._

“No.”

 _GREAT NEITHER DO I._ He stopped for a moment. _DO YOU HEAR THAT?_

Leo did hear that. It sounded like someone was dragging something very heavy.

A little girl waddled into the clearing. It took Leo a good minute of staring to make sure that she was in fact duct taped to an uprooted tree.

She sat down on the log next to Chicken Man, looking completely livid. Chicken Man just smiled—the first time Leo had ever seen him smile, actually—this absolute shit-eating grin, like he expected this to happen.

_SO. HOW DID IT GO?_

The girl glared at him.

Chicken Man leaned over and pulled up his pants leg. From his sock, he produced a long switchblade he flipped out and used to cut the girl loose.

 _YOU WERE RIGHT. THEY WERE COMPLETELY NUTS,_ she signed when Leo and Chicken Man’s combined efforts finally extracted her from the tree. _WHO TAPES A DEAF KID TO A TREE?_

 _I TOLD YOU SO,_ Chicken Man signed.

 _YOU ALSO TOLD ME MOTH MAN WAS REAL,_ the girl signed.

_WAS THAT A VEILED INSULT?_

_YES, [unknown sign]._

_GOOD. MAYBE THERE’S HOPE FOR YOU AFTER ALL._

“Um, hi, I’m also here. Who’s this?” Leo said, pointing at the girl.

“I’m Pam,” she said as Chicken Man signed _SHE’S PAN,_ which seemed the closest he could get to her name without spelling. “You saw me at breakfast,” Pam continued.

“Oh yeah, you were the knitting kid.”

She scoffed. _I HELPED YOU LEARN A LANGUAGE AND I’M “THE KNITTING KID?”_

 _PAN CALM DOWN. NOW THAT EVERYONE’S HERE WE SHOULD TALK BUSINESS_ , Chicken Man signed.

“Abraham won’t let him leave the camp,” Pam explained, “and he won’t let him be with the other campers, so he’s stuck with the chickens. He wants to leave, and you want to leave, so you need to figure out how to both leave.”

_SOMEONE VISITED CAMP TODAY. I ASKED PAM TO SEE IF THEY COULD HELP ME. THEY CAN’T._

“Yes, they can,” Leo blurted out. “Those were my friends and they’re here to rescue me.”

Chicken Man frowned. _IT’S NOT THAT THEY DON’T WANT TO SNEAK US OUT OF HERE. THEY CAN’T. YOU UNDERESTIMATE FATHER’S PULL._

“…Abraham? He’s just nuts, isn’t he?” Leo said hesitantly.

Chicken Man and Pam looked at each other.

 _YES AND NO,_ Chicken Man finally answered. _HE SEEMS UNSTABLE AT TIMES. HE RAMBLES ABOUT THE POWER OF GOD AND THE HOLY SPIRIT HEALING PEOPLE. BUT I CAN’T DISCOUNT THOSE CLAIMS._

Leo’s brow furrowed in irritation. “Really?”

_YES REALLY. YOU DON’T KNOW HOW MANY KIDS USED TO BE SICK. LAST WEEK I SAW HIM HEAL A BROKEN LEG. THE BONE WAS STICKING OUT AND IT JUST CLOSED UP. THIS IS WHY THE CAMP PUTS UP WITH HIM._

“Then why doesn’t he heal you two?” Leo said skeptically.

Pam shrugged and made an I don’t know noise. “Either it’s because he can’t—which is unlikely—or it’s because he needs us. He’s,” she pointed at Chicken Man, “here because Abraham needs someone to do the dirty work, and I’m here to help his image. Faith healing a little deaf kid looks better on TV compared to what he’s doing to you.”

Leo leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees to breathe better. “Gee, thanks for the concern.”

 _EITHER WAY I'M WORRIED,_ Chicken Man signed.  _ANY DAY HE COULD JUMP ON HIS PODIUM AND CALL HIMSELF JESUS._

“Has he walked on water? Made infinite fish? Raised the dead?”

_HE—_

“Exactly. When that stuff happens, then I’ll start worrying.” Leo looked up. “Chicken Man said ‘they.’ Who else came?”

“All I saw was the blonde girl and that emo kid,” Pam said.

“Oh my gods, that’s Nico,” Leo muttered. “If Abraham caught him, he’d get eaten alive.”

_HOPEFULLY THAT WON’T HAPPEN. I WANT THOSE TWO TO STAY AS FAR OUT OF THIS CAMP AS POSSIBLE._

Leo felt the eggs turn over in his stomach. “They can help!”

 _PAN CLOSE YOUR EYES I’M GOING TO SWEAR,_ Chicken Man signed. She put a hand over her eyes, but Leo could see that she was peeking through. _NO THEY CAN’T. THEY’RE GOING TO FUCK UP THE WHOLE PLAN I JUST KNOW IT._

“Do you even _have_ a plan?”

_IT DOESN’T MATTER. IF I CAN’T CONTROL THEIR ACTIONS THEY COULD SWOOP IN AND RUIN EVERYTHING._

“Yeah? How?”

And then the gunfire started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, why is Apollo getting in on the action, and why does he refuse to enter the church? There is a meta answer, and it does have to do with the Latin term for "light bringer." As for the in-story answer, it also has to do with that, but for different reasons.
> 
> Whatever the answer is, Nico shouldn't have stood directly in front of him. Being invisible is useful in most situations, but when you're standing in front of a guy that's being shot at, you're just providing a clearer target.
> 
> Apollo says "maybe" when asked if Annabeth's okay. Worry about Annabeth, but also worry about why Apollo might've said "maybe."
> 
> Leo is doing much worse than when we last saw him. I considered directly portraying the exorcism, but A) I couldn't do it without swerving into melodrama B) whatever the reader can come up with is probably much more disturbing than anything I have to offer.
> 
> As for why he dismisses Abraham's purported healing abilities, as opposed to being worried: this is a recent development in Abe's preaching style and he hasn't seen it in person. Not to mention Leo utterly rejects the notion of Daddy Abe having any sort of divine authority. Or anything else that'll force him to take the guy seriously.
> 
> Yes the part where Pam walks in with the tree taped to her is a reference to A Series of Unfortunate Events.
> 
> There are many ASL signs for "father" and not all of them mean "priest."
> 
> Quick note on the Argo flashback. Apparently people think Octavian might be British, but he really does remind me of Deep South politicians! I live in a state where all electoral candidates are Republican and all campaign ads consist of claiming the other guy's a dirty liberal. I know what I'm talking about.
> 
> Leo also has a brief flashback to an incident involving a cardboard baler. For those of y'all wondering how that turned out in the real world (as opposed to the dream falling apart), Nico wasn't hurt, but he is badly claustrophobic in this story. Shortly after the cut-off point, Nico accidentally summoned skeletons and Leo had to smash the door latch to get him out.
> 
> Either way that was an opportunity for them to talk about love and establish what happened between Nico and Will. Also, morbid jokes from Leo. I wasn't sure where that scene was going when I wrote it, but I did not expect the phrase "wearing Will Solace's skin."
> 
> Next chapter we will finally find out who Chicken Man is. CAN YOU HANDLE IT???
> 
> Uh, I've done better write-ups, but considering how much this chapter is hiding it'll do. Kudos, comment, the usual, I have calculus homework bye.


	8. Apocalypse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> holy shit. just. what the fuck

“I don’t know but I been told!”

_“I don’t know but I been told!”_

“Hyperborean pussy is mighty cold!”

_“Hyperborean pussy is mighty cold!”_

Jason watched the Fifth Cohort do morning drills in the field. He was almost a mile away, and yet he could still hear them singing their marching song. Festus, the metal dragon, was resting in the distance, worn out from travelling all night. The rest of New Rome bustled behind him. Hot California wind rustled the grass and blew on legionnaire and retiree alike. A plastic Walmart bag sailed through the sky like an airborne jellyfish.

His throat constricted with guilt. This city was in so much danger.

“Mmm, good!”

_“Mmm, good!”_

“Tastes good!”

_“Tastes good!”_

“Feels good!”

_“Feels good!”_

“Real good!”

_“Real good!”_

The out-of-sight swishing of fabric alerted Jason to her presence. He turned and saw Reyna, resplendent in her red cape, the dogs at her heels. Their metal claws clicked as they walked down the stone path. “You requested we meet here?”

Jason was out of sorts from the hectic happy dragon ride, but he’d done his best to clean up before meeting Reyna. He had opted out of wearing his Camp Half-Blood necklace. This was already going to be a stressful conversation, and casually displaying Greek paraphernalia while doing it might be in bad taste. “Yes, praetor.”

“And why might that be?”

“There could be eavesdroppers in the meeting hall, and this is sensitive information.”

Reyna frowned, her expression becoming sterner. “Let’s walk, then.”

They went down and away from the marching cohort and towards the outskirts of the camp. When Jason was finally sure Reyna was the only one within earshot: “How much do you know about Camp Gilead?”

Reyna reiterated all that she had heard: that they were a threat to Camp Half-Blood, were holding a Greek hostage, that the gods were involved, and finally Annabeth’s mission into the campground. “Is there anything to report?” she said evenly.

“Yes. Annabeth found a list while at Gilead. It said, ‘Praetor Reyna, M. Kahale, Dakota J., Maxima O., and Augur Lucretia,’” he rattled off. “Whoever this is knows the names of Roman officials.”

Reyna’s brow furrowed. “...I wasn’t informed that Camp Gilead knew of Camp Jupiter.”

“We didn’t know until now. Annabeth called me last night. As soon as I heard I took Festus out.”

They both stopped in the middle of the field. The wind picked up, sending Reyna’s cape spiraling sideways. Aurum and Argentum darted their heads around, clearly wondering about the drop in mood.

“Where did she find this list?”

“Written on the arm of an eleven-year-old girl by an unnamed man.”

“For what purpose?”

“According to the girl, that man wants to meet with one of those people to... ‘bail him out.’”

Reyna seemed to mull over his words. “The list doesn’t make sense. Why name several centurions, but only one praetor?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe his knowledge of Roman authority is incomplete?”

“I would agree, but not everyone on that list has authority,” she said. “Lucretia Oswald has refused the Senate seat the augur would normally hold. And Maxima—she isn’t a legionnaire at all; she retired four years ago.”

“So...” Jason said slowly. The weight on his chest shifted as the gears in his head turned. “Someone at Gilead has already been watching us. For at least four years.”

“It doesn’t explain why he hasn’t listed Praetor Zhang. There has to be a better explanation.”

“But what would that be?”

* * *

 Nico was handcuffed to a cot and the lawyer was leering over him. “There had better be a good explanation for this, young man.”

He’d woken up with a pain in his leg that most people would call blinding. The ceiling was probably white at some point but had gone grey from age and he was surrounded by ugly shower curtains. Surprisingly, he was not strung up by his wrists, bleeding from the mouth in a dark basement. This was an infirmary. A shitty overventilated infirmary but an infirmary.

The celestial bronze knife had mysteriously found its way onto Nico’s person, in spite of him never actually taking it from Apollo. The cold metal rested between his ankle and his sock, where nobody could see it unless they knew where to look. His stygian iron sword was gone—likely confiscated. The knife would be all he had in a fight.

The lawyer, who now wore a green t-shirt with the name tag “TERESA” pinned to it, was waiting for an answer.

Teresa was the one who’d shot him in the first place, so trying to prove his case to her would be futile. He needed to get her out of the room.

“I’m sorry,” he pleaded, donning his best kicked-puppy look. “I was so desperate to get in here I had to break in. Please, I need to speak with a priest.”

Teresa set her jaw. Nico at first feared she’d say no, but she parted the curtains. “Don’t move.”

Nico wondered if he could bail on this mission by shadow travelling out. The handcuffs could drag the cot with him...

No. He couldn’t. This was his chance to infiltrate.

“Someone wants to see you!” Teresa shouted.

A booming voice answered: “Honey, I’m about to leave!”

“Wait, you’re leaving?”

“I have business to take care of.”

“What about that vermin in the bushes?” Teresa said more quietly.

“Just don’t touch it, I’ll dispose of it later. What do you need?”

“It’s the boy from last night.”

He paused. “Where is he?”

This was when Abraham entered the room. Nico tried to keep his vision from going red with rage. How many days had it been since the ball? Four, maybe five? It felt like forever since he’d first seen this man, the root of all his problems, part a crowd like the Red Sea. Nico wanted to knock him flat on his ass.

Abraham raised his eyebrows. “You look familiar.”

“Yes, I do—you saw me at the ball. I googled your address and broke in. I had nowhere else to turn,” Nico wheedled. He wasn’t sure how convincing his lie was. Despite coming off as mysterious he tended to be straightforward with his enemies, since brute force could typically fix the problem. “I snuck into the ball with Leo, too. They had free food. I’m homeless.”

Abraham clasped his hands in thought. The gesture made him look like he was praying. He might’ve actually been praying; Nico couldn’t tell. “Teresa said she saw you at Camp Half-Blood.”

“I work there. I help the nurses in the infirmary.”

He didn’t seem terribly impressed by this troublemaker. “Why come here? As opposed to... say, a shelter.”

Nico’s throat tightened. The preacher was onto him. “I used to go to shelters with my sister. I woke up one morning and she was gone,” he muttered before getting out of the topic. That sob story was a little too real. “I want to turn my life around. So I came here.”

Abraham squinted. “Does this have anything to do with your friendship with Mr. Valdez?”

Nico sweated. “I’ll sever ties with him. I see now that he—and the rest of Camp Half-Blood—led me down a dark road. I want to get out of the gutter, and God...” He watched Abraham’s expression tighten. “...God’s _people,_ I hope, will lead me out of it.”

Abraham sat there in silence for a minute, before slowly, precariously, removing a key from his pocket, and unlocking the handcuffs.

“Go on.”

* * *

Leo was deep in thought. “‘Hey, baby, did you know that in Greek mythology, heaven is Uranus?’”

“I don’t think Ezra would be into that,” Nancy sighed, lying on her stomach and grinding the edge of a plastic toothbrush against the pavement. “I think I should do the Bible thing.”

“Nobody wants to see your Bible boobs, Nancy.”

It was breakfast again, and neither of them had even bothered going in the cafeteria. Instead, they lay on the blacktop outside the gym. Nancy gestured with her toothbrush. “Did you hear that noise last night?”

Of course. Leo couldn’t stop thinking about it. He tried looking in the infirmary to see if Nico or Annabeth were there, but he was hastily barred from going inside. Something was going on. “Yeah. It sounded like gunshots. Who would be firing a gun in the middle of night?”

Nancy blew a raspberry. “Teresa, if she got startled.”

“Teresa just walks around carrying a gun after midnight?” Leo sat up. “That can’t be legal.”

“If Teresa cared about what’s legal our lives would be a lot easier,” Nancy grumbled.

Leo frowned. If Nico and Annabeth were wandering around the camp at night, and Teresa was the only one with a gun... “Is she normally up at that hour?” he asked. “Or did she hear something?”

“Oh, she’s normally up that late. She goes skulking around, hoping she’ll find some kid wandering in the dark so she can beat his ass for being out past curfew. She broke some kid’s leg so bad last week the bones were sticking out and Abraham yelled at her after he fixed it. He’s trying to make her stop—he took some Viagra, but I don’t think it worked.”

So Chicken Man had told the truth about Abraham healing the broken leg. He’d scoffed at the idea, given that the guy didn’t seem in his right mind, but Nancy, while obnoxious, was lucid. But before he could process that another, more interesting question tumbled out: “Viagra?”

“Abraham’s dick doesn’t work.”

“...”

“What? You ain’t already figured that out? He’s a cult leader obsessed with hoarding children. Why doesn’t he have any of his own? It’s because his—dick—don’t—work,” she asserted, clapping for emphasis. “Teresa beats children because her husband can’t have sex with her.”

“...”

“Don’t look at me like that. I’ve been here for five years and I am _positive_ that’s what’s going on. I got so much more gossip but these boring Christian kids don’t want to hear it, Valdez. Pam lies about hearing better after Abraham heals her. Ezra wants to be Catholic. Chicken Man has gang tattoos. This is valuable dirt!”

Leo finally found words. “I’m going to see if the infirmary’s open.”

“You can’t run from _the truth_ , Valdez!” Nancy shouted as he walked away.

The infirmary was still not open, and Ezra very politely told him as much. “There was an incident last night,” he explained from his bench right outside the building. “I’m not aware of the details. I just know it was messy and you don’t want to see it.”

“I know, Ezra. Teresa told me that earlier.”

Ezra offered pain pills. Leo groaned internally but took them. “Are you doing anything after this? I’m leading a camp activity today and I could use your help.”

Leo slapped himself. He hadn’t gotten back to the cabin until one in the morning and he was exhausted. “Okay. When is it?”

“It is...” Ezra looked at his watch and frowned. “Right now. Let’s go!”

* * *

Hazel stood, frowning, in the door of Cabin 13, which was both empty and undisturbed. She called out to the first person who passed by: “Hey, have you seen Nico?”

The first person who passed by happened to be Percy, who Hazel quickly realized was upset. His shirt was on backwards and his hair looked like a big clump of seaweed. “Uh, no. Have you seen Annabeth?” he said.

“No, I just got here. What happened to Annabeth?”

“She went to Camp Gilead yesterday. She called me last night to tell me she left—she should be back by now.”

Hazel opened her mouth and closed it speechlessly.

After an afternoon bumming around New Rome with her brother—he’d finished a whole milkshake in one sitting, which was new—he explained all the details and pitfalls of the current situation, then stood up in the middle of the ice cream parlor and said he was going to go see if Annabeth was alright.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to go to that camp,” Hazel had said.

“I’ll stay in the parking lot. Don’t worry, I’ll meet you in the morning,” he’d replied.

“I suppose.” Though the idea made her nervous, Nico was more than capable of taking out a few security guards if he needed to. And she guessed the parking lot wasn’t part of the property. “Take care, then.”

Then early next morning, Percy’s dog was mysteriously sitting in the middle of the Field of Mars, waiting for something to happen. The legion tried marching around her as Hazel waited for her brother to pick her up. Finally, Hazel tried asking Mrs. O’Leary what was wrong.

Of course, Mrs. O’Leary couldn’t answer, but she did pick up Hazel in her mouth and shadow travel to Camp Half-Blood.

Hazel, now in Percy’s cabin, could see a nose through the window, massive and pressed against the glass. The nose sniffed loudly. “Mrs. O’Leary! I just cleaned that window,” Percy complained as he tossed a drachma into the in-house fountain. “O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering. Show Nico di Angelo at… wherever he is right now.”

The Iris Message buffered before turning to static. “We’re sorry; the number you have reached is not available,” said the voice from the message. “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again. We’re sorry; the number...”

Mrs. O’Leary whimpered.

“Is that normal?” Hazel said.

“No, it isn’t,” Percy muttered. He put in another drachma. “…Show Annabeth Chase.”

The static cleared.

* * *

“Okay, everybody!” Ezra said cheerfully. “Pretend to be Africans and try to kill me!”

“I think this activity is in bad taste,” Leo said as he armed each kid with a crudely sharpened stick from a metal drum. As soon as he was done, he stuffed his hands in his pocket. Sometimes campers looked too long at his hand around the stick. “Like. Did you hear yourself when you said that?”

Ezra shrugged. “I didn’t write the script; Father did. He said something about needing to teach young campers about defending themselves in a hostile preaching environment.”

“Of course he did.” The mental image of baby Nico looking deeply disappointed in a racist ghost arose.

“Don’t point those at each other! They’re sharp!” Ezra shouted. He himself held a stick as long as he was tall. “Is that everyone?”

As Ezra scratched a circle in the dust, Leo scanned the group for stragglers, but his eye was drawn to two people standing apart from the crowd. Chicken Man and Pam were having a conversation slightly behind the self-defense practice.

 _I’M NOT CRAZY,_ Chicken Man signed. _THE CHICKENS ARE TELLING ME IT’S NOT GOING TO BE GOOD._

Pam was not convinced. _TAKE A NAP [unknown sign] YOU SOUND LIKE A PHONE PSYCHIC._

_LISTEN TO ME—_

_HOW?_

_DON’T BE SMART WITH ME,_ Chicken Man replied.

“Hey, are you going to fight with the other campers?” Leo asked them.

Pam shook her head no, Chicken Man nodded yes. “Don’t! You’re not feeling good,” Pam insisted.

_I’M FINE. JUST WAITING UNTIL THE CHICKENS’ [warning?/alarm?] COMES TRUE._

“People who feel fine don’t say things like ‘chicken alarm,’” Leo agreed. “You should sit out.”

Chicken Man turned beet red. _THE PHRASE DOESN’T TRANSLATE WELL. NOW GET OUT OF MY WAY SO I CAN BEAT UP E-Z-R-A._ He fell into line with the others.

Pam looked worried. “Don’t hurt yourself!”

Nancy had the first go. She swung her stick at Ezra’s neck, which he blocked by moving his slightly to the right. He knocked her out of the circle with a blunt-ended poke to the chest. “Oh, no! You got me!” she cried faux-dramatically. “So, are you doing anything after—”

“Next!” Ezra said. Nancy trudged away, grumbling about how she wanted Ezra to poke her in the chest with his other big stick, which was a phrase that Leo wished he had never, ever heard.

Ezra pushed kids out of the circle mechanically. Most of them were half his size, so it looked like his biggest challenge was not hurting them. Leo leaned on the metal barrel to rest the muscles in his back, and Nancy did the same out of laziness. “When did this camp start teaching self-defense?” Leo wondered.

“A little while after you left,” Nancy said. “Abraham got _super_ weird in, like, 2009-ish? He was gone most of that year. When he _was_ here he was rambling about, ‘oh, we gotta be ready to fight for our beliefs,’ blah blah blah, amen. What’s Chicken Man doing here?” she said, pointing at the shabby man standing in the line.

“Self-defending, I guess.”

“I have never seen him do that. Like, he lashes out sometimes, but he never actually fights.”

“...So he’s chicken?”

“Shh—he’s going.”

Chicken Man had reached the top of the line. Immediately, Leo noticed something different. The kids behind him were casually spinning their sticks or holding them near their legs, parallel to the ground. Chicken Man was standing up very straight, with his stick upright.

Ezra noticed this, and changed position so he could move faster. He wasn’t standing around poking kids with sticks anymore. He was ready for a real fight.

Chicken Man charged straight forward, forcing Ezra to spring out of the way. They went back and forth, moving towards the edges of the circle but always pushing back before either could get knocked out. The sound of CLACK CLACK CLACK filled the air.

“When did Ezra learn how to fight like that?” Leo whispered.

Nancy looked either off-put or turned on. He didn’t want to know which. “Abraham trained him, and he was in the military.”

“What about him?” Leo said, pointing at Chicken Man, who was steadily pushing Ezra across the circle.

“Fuck if I know.”

Ezra broke loose of Chicken Man by kicking him in the nuts. Chicken Man recoiled, but blindly swung his stick with one hand, bopping Ezra in the face. He swung again, but Ezra caught the stick’s end and wrenched it away from his grip, jabbing the blunt part quickly into his opponent’s gut. Chicken Man finally fell, his back over the line. He sat up and shook the dirt off himself.

“Whew!” Ezra exclaimed. “That’s game. Anyone else?”

The rest of the line shrunk away. If anyone had the hope that they could beat Ezra before, it was now thoroughly trampled.

“I’ll go,” said a voice at the back of the line.

The campers moved out of the way, all at once deciding they did not need to be between Ezra and this crazy boy. Leo felt his breath catch in his throat—either out of hope or fear.

Because Nico was standing at the edge of the field.

And before either of them could react to seeing each other, Chicken Man rushed forward and punched Nico in the face.

* * *

Percy felt like the rainbow goddess had punched him in the stomach.

Annabeth was asleep in bed, but not her bed at camp. It was a sterile cot, and a steady beep was the only sound on the call (at least it was beeping, right? At least it wasn’t flatlined). Her hair, normally messy when she woke up, was gone, shaved to a sparse inch of length. Her eye sockets were so dark it looked like she’d been punched twice in the face.

Hazel had a hand over her mouth.

“Annabeth,” he whispered. Then, louder: “Annabeth!”

She stirred. Her eyes fluttered open. “Ugh... Percy?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” He wanted to stick his hands through the Iris Message and hug her, or shake her into consciousness, or something other than this. “Hazel’s here too. What happened?”

Annabeth blinked rapidly, like she was trying to bring him into focus. “I... was driving back to camp. I saw something on the road. It was bright—” She frowned and felt her shaved hair. “—Oh, jeez, the top of my head’s freezing—and I think someone called out to me, on the road. I swerved the car. Must’ve hit something anyway, because that’s the last thing I remember.”

Percy sighed. “How do you feel?”

“Worry about that later. Did something happen to Nico?”

“What?”

“Hazel’s in your cabin. The most likely reason is that she’s sending an Iris Message too. Did—something—happen—to Nico?” she repeated. She wasn’t staring holes into him like she usually did with that tone of voice, but she _did_ just wake up.

“I thought he was in the car with you,” Percy said.

“He wasn’t. He said he’d shadow travel back.” Annabeth paused. “He’s not there, is he?”

Percy swallowed the lump in his throat. “We—we haven’t looked _everywhere._ For all we know he could be standing in the corner of this room waiting to jump out.”

“But if he isn’t... I’m ninety percent sure he’s at Camp Gilead.” Give or take a few monsters, probably. “You need to tell Chiron. Hazel, are you still there?”

“Yeah,” Hazel said, but didn’t sound happy about the news at all.

“You should check the bunker if you haven’t already. Nico’s been spending time there lately. I need to speak with Percy alone.”

Hazel rushed out of the cabin to do so. Percy felt anxiety creep up on him. “I get that you’re bouncing off the walls trying to get this camp thing sorted out, but you can’t throw yourself across enemy lines.”

“I know.” Her eyes seemed glazed from painkillers. “I hoped Gilead would be a minor issue, but that’s clearly not the case.”

He braced his arms on the side of the fountain. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“No, I’m not.”

Percy was glad that he was already leaning on something, because his knees suddenly felt a little watery. “What do you mean?”

“You’re an orange blob, Percy. Everything’s a blur.”

He looked closely at Annabeth’s image—her grey eyes weren’t just glazed. They weren’t focusing on him at all. That’s why she asked if Hazel was still there, he realized, feeling like he was swimming in ice. She couldn’t see. “Oh my gods.” He reached out to touch her but pulled back before he could accidentally cut off the IM.

“Don’t panic,” she said, even though Percy could tell she was breathing a little fast now. Maybe it was directed at herself. “It—the doctor hasn’t told me what happened yet. It might just be a side effect of the drugs.”

But a shaved head meant brain surgery. Percy knew this, and Annabeth definitely knew this.

“I’m coming over there. Where are you?”

* * *

Nico didn’t know who this hobo was, but he was not taking any shit from him.

When he wound up for another punch, Nico kicked him in the nuts. He went down immediately, almost on top of the little girl he’d encountered last night, who had been trying to hold the hobo back.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Ezra protested. “What just happened here?”

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” a redhead yelled across the field.

For a good minute, Leo just stared.

Nico dusted himself off. To his chagrin, that exchange had everyone staring at him. And now his nose was bleeding again. “Um. Hi. I’m new here. Meaning I know _absolutely none of you_ ,” he said, hoping Leo would take the hint.

Leo blinked, then looked away. Thank gods, he still had some sense.

Ezra came up, wearing a counselor’s t-shirt and holding a big stick. He placed the end of his stick on the hobo’s chest. “I’m sorry about him, he’s—” He squinted. “Have we met before?”

“Nope,” Nico said firmly.

“But I could’ve sworn—”

“Never. Who is this guy?” Nico asked, pointing at the hobo.

Ezra didn’t buy this. He seemed different now—more confident and discerning. He was on his home turf, Nico realized. He could leverage authority here. “Who are you?”

“Nico di Angelo. I’m new here,” he repeated.

“Why are you allowed in here before being registered?”

“I’m a special case.”

“Really,” said Ezra, narrowing his eyes. “What’ll Father Abraham say if I ask him as much?”

Nico smiled thinly. “I’d like to see you try. He just left.”

“Great,” Ezra said calmly. “So I have an unregistered camper, a staff member having a meltdown, and—Nancy, what in the name of Jesus are you _doing?!_ ” he suddenly yelled.

The redhead, who was in the middle of putting two books down her shirt, stopped midmotion. “What? …Is this doing something for you?”

“You know what? All of you?” Ezra gestured to redheaded Nancy, the hobo, and Nico. “You’re all terrible and you’re coming with me. I’ll let Teresa decide what to do with you.”

Leo raised his hand. “Yes, Leo?” Ezra said.

“I feel witchcraft upon me, can I come too?” Leo said.

“Yes, you can come too.”

The little girl raised her hand. “ _Yes,_ Pam?” Ezra said louder.

“I have to shit and the restroom in the chapel—”

“No, Pam.”

Pam walked off, grumbling softly. A cold hand touched Nico’s elbow. He jumped back. “Don’t touch me.”

Ezra flashed a forced smile. “Just trying to make sure you don’t get lost.”

“I can handle myself just fine.”

Ezra didn’t seem very happy about that.

When the group began moving, Nico drifted towards the middle. Ezra and Nancy headed the walk, Nancy fraternizing at every turn. The hobo stayed in the back, leering at him. Nico had no idea what his problem was. Leo stayed in the center with him. His bum leg hampered him, but he could put off the pain as long as he needed to.

They walked past a field of kids playing soccer. Nico was struck by the wholesomeness of the scene, especially against the backdrop of the high tower behind them. The windows were too narrow to see inside but Nico had the uncanny feeling that someone was in there, watching them. That children found this so normal as to play soccer under that gaze...

“You don’t know how happy I am to see you,” Leo whispered. He looked tired—but not the usual, sat-up-all-night-trying-to-finish-something brand of tired. Emotionally tired. He went in for a hug before remembering and stopping himself. Then he raised his hand for a high five.

Nico winced. “Oh gods, what happened?”

Leo’s fingers were swollen with bruises. His scarred wrist was burned again. But he hid the damaged hand. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. Let me see that.” Leo slowly extricated his hand. Nico examined him closely. His hand was overly hot—normally so hot the patient’s blood would be boiling, but Leo’s temperature normally ran high. For anyone else he’d call it an infection but if he factored that in… “It’s a little warm. Probably just inflammation.” But the cool flame of anger shined through in his voice.

The action caused them to lag behind the group. The hobo passed them, and he spat in their direction as they did.

“What is your problem?!” Nico growled.

Leo scoffed. “Don’t expect an answer. He’s mute.”

“Does he always do that?”

“He wouldn’t hurt a fly, except when it comes to you and me. We’re the lucky one in a million.”

“Hooray.” Nico wiped at the blood trickling down his face. “Are we supposed to be going in the woods?”

“I guess? Teresa must be doing something in the chapel.”

The group traveled down the path. The woods had become a drastically different environment from Nico’s nighttime lurk session. There seemed to be no end to light, despite logic dictating there should be shadows—and there were shadows, but enough sunshine managed to make it down to break them up, leaving almost no avenues of escape.

Nico kept trying to find an intact patch of darkness, bringing him so far behind the group Ezra took notice. “You two better not be committing the sin of Onan back there!” Ezra shouted.

“What _is_ that?” Nico said.

Ezra narrowed his eyes and backtracked. Oh boy, what’s he gonna do? Uninvite me from the church barbecue? Nico thought.

“Listen,” Ezra whispered as politely as possible. “I don’t know what you’re up to, and I don’t really want to know. I can handle you in the real world. But this is basically my house. I don’t appreciate you walking in with your… _Wiccan tendencies_ ,” he said, spitting his last words.

Nico darted his eyes around trying to respond. “I’m sorry, you think I’m a witch?”

“If you’re not, why do you dress like one? What’s the chain for?”

“Isn’t it obvious, it’s for—” Nico felt at the chain he wore as a belt. “…Where the fuck are my keys?” he muttered.

They picked up the pace after this. Nico gave up on trying to escape through the trees’ shadows. Something was just wrong with the woods.

The dirt path eventually led into pavestones. Big, flat pavestones that wobbled when you stood on them because they weren’t set into the uneven ground. The chapel and its glass were stained and grimy. The red brick walls were covered in unidentifiable black scum—maybe an overgrowth of mildew. Yikes. Nico could’ve sworn it looked nicer last night.

Ezra opened the doors in a sweeping gesture. “Teresa?” He paused. “Where is she?”

Nancy breezed past them. “Cool. I’ma go in the back room and wait for y’all to get killed first.”

Nico might’ve raised his voice in irritation, but he was too busy feeling his hair stand on end. His radar was lit up.

Ezra was frowning. “I’ll go with Nancy and see if Teresa’s in there. None of you move.”

They left Nico, Leo, and Chicken Man in the main hall. Leo glanced at him. “Dude, you look awful.”

Nico swallowed. “I can feel death in here.”

“No shit, so can I. I can smell the mold spores.” Glad to see Leo hadn’t lost his humor.

“You know what I mean. I don’t like this. I’m gonna look for the source. You stay here,” he added when Leo opened his mouth. “You’re hurt and unarmed.”

“Di Angelo. This body is a _lethal_ weapon.” He winked.

“Ha _ha._ Let me take care of it.”

Nico moved back and forth across the hall, trying to track where the feeling was strongest. He felt like he was playing an unpleasant game of Warmer-Colder. _You’re getting deader! Deader! Your life insurance is paying out!_

He was led to the ladies’ bathroom—never a good place to run into death, Nico knew from experience. (Usually it was a monster, but sometimes someone was doing cocaine in there, which wasn’t too great either.) He knocked on the door. “Anybody in there?”

There was a loud hissing.

Nico drew the knife from his ankle. “Ma’am, are you okay?”

“…”

He shifted the knife in his hand. He wasn’t used to anything shorter than a sword, but it would do. “I’m gonna count to three, and then I’ll come in there.”

“…”

“One… two…”

He kicked the door in, hitting Teresa in the face.

Teresa’s straight bangs were in disarray. Her blouse was torn in the front and the skin there was raked, like she was trying to claw her heart out. But the most startling thing was her eyes. They were bright yellow, dilated as if crazed or high.

_Eidolon._

She tackled him to the ground and screeched.

Foam from her mouth dripped inches from Nico’s head. The hand he gripped the knife in was pinned next to his head by her bloody acrylic nails. Her breath came out in gurgles. “ _Agony!_ ” the eidolon cried. “ _Leave this cursed place, half-blood!_ ”

Nico’s mind raced. He had fought an eidolon only once before, and it ambushed him in the body of a forty-year-old man in a parking lot. Nico had run him through and left him there. He could do no such thing here. Teresa was suing Camp Half-Blood and he lived there, there was no way he couldn’t draw suspicion. “Shit!”

“ _My mind dissolves!_ ” She gripped his fingers, working to pry the knife away from him. “ _I must return to the Underworld!_ ”

Nico held on harder. Never in his life would he have imagined a monster so frantic to die—much less circumstances where he had to keep it from doing so. He needed to stall. “What’s wrong?”

“ _The father!_ ” She screamed as if stabbed. “ _I must return if there is any hope of survival!_ ”

Her grip was crushing. Where was Leo? “Can’t you exit your host before you do that?!”

“ _Have you no sense, boy? Why can’t you jump in the void of space without a helmet?_ ”

The door was kicked open. Nico looked up, expecting Leo.

He was greeted by frosted tips and red hair.

The hobo charged without hesitation, slamming into them both at terminal velocity. Now he was on top of Teresa, and Nico was thrown halfway across the bathroom floor, scrambling to get the knife back in his hand. The tangle of bodies had caused Teresa to jam her knee right into his bullet wound, the pain catching him off-guard. Ezra stood in the door. Nico wasn’t sure if he could even see what was happening.

The hobo punched her square in the face, but either he was a weak shot or eidolons didn’t knock out easy. “ _You again?_ ” she hissed. “ _What is the phrase? ‘Fool you once?’_ ”

Whiplash fast, Teresa darted her hand under the hem of his pants. Nico only saw a flash of metal before the hobo rolled over, blood soaking his sweatshirt. Her face contorted in rage when she saw the red switchblade.

“ _Mortal steel?! Gah!_ ”

Before Nico could grab the knife, her heel came down on it, dragging it to her hand. She held it over her throat. “ _Enough nonsense!_ ”

Then Ezra darted forward like a bullet and grabbed Teresa’s hand.

“Let go! Let go, no no no, let go you’re gonna kill yourself!” His face was white.

“ _That’s the idea, runt!_ ” She twisted his wrist, and his fingers popped off the handle. He withdrew his bruised hand for a split second as the blade dropped, and then he reached for the only thing he could.

Ezra’s fingers were wrapped around the edge of the knife, blood and sweat dripping down onto Teresa’s face as he kept the blade aloft.

Leo, late to the party, burst in, and whacked Teresa in the face with a hymn book.

* * *

Leo had put up with a lot of shit over the past day and a half, and he really needed to find a nice private place to scream his lungs out, but three people were in the infirmary now, so he had to deal with that.

Teresa was still out cold, and the nurse handcuffed her to the bed just in case. Nico snickered about the tables turning, whatever that meant. Either way, Leo could get away with breaking Teresa’s nose. That was a great plus.

Ezra was getting his hand fixed. Leo wasn’t sure what had happened before he came in, but his mind balked at the idea of Ezra getting in a real fight. Sure, there was the circle match, but poking children with sticks was different from an outright demon knife brawl.

Right now, he and Nico were helping the other nurse cut an unconscious Chicken Man’s sweatshirt off so she could treat his wounds. The blood was scary, but they needed to get the bulk off to see the extent of the damage. “Careful with the knife,” Nico advised, snipping at the fabric near the switchblade’s handle.

“Ugh,” Leo muttered, peeling the filthy cloth away. “When’s the last time he washed this thing?”

Chicken Man, as big as he looked, had prominently jutting ribs. Made sense for a guy that probably lived on eggs. If Leo poked his side, he might’ve been able to feel the cot’s surface through his body—but he didn’t, because that’s where the knife was.

Nico looked like he was wondering why the nurse wasn’t calling an ambulance for anyone. Leo knew it was because this camp was thoroughly illegal and she didn’t want to go downtown.

She felt around the surrounding area before pulling the knife out and announcing that it hadn’t hit any vital organs, so she was going to stitch it up and let him rest.

Leo wondered if she had “healing powers” too or if she just didn’t care if her patients died.

Nico helped her hold the wound shut as she stitched it. Whether it was out of kindness or a fear of incompetence was uncertain.

Afterwards, they were left alone in the Camp Gilead emergency room.

Chicken Man was lying in the cot, looking like a pencil somebody had chewed on. He curled up in a ball as the musty air conditioning unit kicked on unnecessarily. Leo cleared his throat. “Nice weather, huh?”

“That eidolon was begging for death,” Nico said flatly.

“Or let’s just jump right into the weird shit, gotcha. What do you mean, ‘begging for death?’”

“It was screaming in pain. It tried to grab my knife and kill itself while inside Teresa’s body. It was… odd. Yelling about ‘the father’ and how it had to go back to Tartarus if it had any ‘hope of survival.’”

“But… monsters go to Tartarus _by_ dying. Dying’s just an inconvenience to them, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m stuck on. I don’t think that’s what it meant by dying.” He frowned and set his chin on his clasped hands.

Leo’s eyes wandered back to Chicken Man lying in the cot. “Chicken Man said he was warned something bad would happen.”

“Who?”

“This guy,” Leo said, pointing at the filthy man on the cot.

“Who told him?”

“Well, his chickens. …Yeah, that’s why I didn’t listen,” Leo said when Nico looked at him strangely.

Nico’s brow furrowed and moved to the bedside. “Who is this guy, anyway? A homeless guy who wandered in here? A really weird camp employee?”

Leo made a so-so gesture. “A little of both. He lives in a chicken coop in the woods and speaks sign language. The only person he really talks to is that girl, Pam. He gave me eggs when Abraham tried starving me out, but other than that he’s just shady and violent. How’s the nose—?”

“He’s dead,” Nico said suddenly.

“Hey, no need to get violent,” Leo joked.

“No, Leo. Look.”

Nico was standing over Chicken Man, leaning close. He had his hand on Chicken Man’s right forearm, and from where Leo was sitting he could see a little bit of black. Nico extended that limp arm, and Leo’s mind went blank.

The black letters SPQR, a harp, and seven straight lines.

“He’s dead,” Nico repeated. “I know, because I killed him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the Wikipedia page on augury:
> 
> _There were five different types of auspices._
> 
> _  
> **ex tripudiis**  
>  _
> 
> _These auspices were read by interpreting the eating patterns of birds. At one point, any bird could perform the sacred dance, but as the practice progressed it became customary to only use chickens._


	9. The Sun, The Prodigal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> car salesman: *slaps this fic* this bad boy can fit so many subplots in it

“How did this happen, Valdez?” Nico said, collapsing into his folding chair.

His brain was in tailspin. Nico could’ve sworn that he’d seen Octavian Motherfucker die right in front of him. The whole situation was kind of a big deal for him. And yet—there he was, very much alive, out cold on a shitty cot. Death was his _thing_ , how the hell could he miss something like this?

Leo exhaled slowly. “Okay. Let’s retrace our steps. How did he die, again?” he said quietly.

“Messily.”

“Is it possible that he just didn’t?” Leo asked, shrugging.

“I’m pretty sure he did.”

“…Did you check?”

“What do you mean, ‘did I _check?_ ’ He was going at terminal velocity, towards an angry primordial goddess, _on fire!_ Why would I check?”

“But did you?”

Nico sighed. “It’s not something I do voluntarily, but I could tell that he died on impact. Problem is that I felt _you_ die too.”

“So… it’s either a false reading—pretty unlikely, given how his death played out—or something brought him back,” Leo said thoughtfully.

“Or a lookalike,” Nico suggested. “It could be another Roman child of Apollo who’s been in the Legion for seven years.” But the odds were low. There were many Roman gods; only a fraction of legionnaires would have that particular tattoo. And it was highly unlikely that any of them would have such a bone to pick with himself and Leo both.

Still, it was the most they could hope for. A Roman in Camp Gilead was confusing, but a _dead_ Roman in Camp Gilead was much, much worse.

Either way, it seemed they were going to get answers faster than expected. Octavian, or his lookalike, winced and pinched the bridge of his nose, the first sign of consciousness they’d gotten out of him in a while.

Without getting up, he made some hand signals Nico didn’t understand. Leo nodded sagely. “He’s saying it’s cold in here and he wants his sweatshirt back.”

“I cut it to pieces to save your life, Octavian.”

Octavian groaned angrily and flipped Nico off.

“If it’s any consolation, I regret it too,” Nico muttered.

Octavian sat up and signed some more. Leo looked both irritated and amused. “Of course we figured out your real name,” he responded. “You have a big ID burned onto your arm.”

The Roman formerly known as Chicken Man glanced down at his tattoo, as if he’d forgotten it were there. He ran his finger down the vertical marks.

Nico felt his mouth compress into a thin line. “You better have a good explanation for this.”

Octavian leaned forward, scratched his beard, and signed.

“He’s gonna need a pen and paper if you can’t understand sign language. Also, a new shirt.”

* * *

(Changed to proper capitalization for ease of reading.)

My name is Octavian Wilhelm Oswald, of the Legion XII Fulminata, ~~centurion of~~ Cohort I—

(wrote Octavian, on the back of a kids’ Biblical comic in ballpoint pen.

“Your initials are OWO?” Leo giggled. Octavian scowled and kept going.)

—and after confirming that I’m myself, I can say that yes I died. Don’t make that face at me di Angelo. Stop.

(“Are you sure you died?”)

I’m sure.

I felt like I was in the waiting room for judgement for weeks. Probably not that long, felt longer because it was crowded with dead Romans.

(“Do you have to write in all caps?”)

Yes. It helps with the dyslexia.

(“It’s not helping us.”)

Boo hoo.

(“Fine. How did you come back?”)

I’m not sure. After a while in the waiting room I felt something strange. It was like I was being ~~lifted up~~ yanked off the floor. The Underworld guards noticed that I was escaping somehow and tried to pull me down, but whatever force wanted me back was stronger. I kept going up. I think I blacked out.

(Nico and Leo exchanged glances, trying to figure out their next question, before Octavian resumed writing.)

I’m not done yet. When I blacked out, I received a vision.

The gods Mars and Apollo were arguing my fate. They knew I was being resurrected, but they weren’t happy about it.

Apollo in particular was angry.

(Octavian paused for a very long time.)

I’m thinking.

My ancestor seemed to know I would be resurrected in Gilead. After my actions in the Giant War, he didn’t trust me to be behind enemy lines. He thought my speaking skills would bring greater credence to Abraham Hill.

(“They couldn’t just put you back?”)

Apparently not.

I tried to tell them I was loyal to the Legion, but they wouldn’t have it. I kept pleading with them until Apollo reached in and removed my voice.

He just wanted me to be quiet for a second, but after doing it, they decided to leave me like that. It wasn’t a permanent fix for whatever problem they had. Yet being voiceless makes me effectively useless to Gilead.

Apollo found it funny. I didn’t.

(“I mean, I think it’s pretty funny too. I would’ve paid money to see— ”)

Imagine your father called you a disgrace to his name and personally broke all your fingers so you could never handle a tool again. How would you feel?

(“…”)

That’s what I thought.

I woke up in the chapel you visited just now. Abraham Hill was there. He was overjoyed at first, then realized something was wrong when I couldn’t respond to him.

I don’t know how it happened, but I’m fairly sure he raised me from the dead.

Hill was not happy that I was raised from the dead as a mute—it made the resurrection look flawed. I also wouldn’t pledge allegiance to his god. That could also make him look bad. So he covered up my origin. Said I was a homeless kid he scraped off the pavement and set me to work on various clean-up jobs.

For the first few weeks, I just mowed grass and frantically pantomimed at anyone with eyes. Those who were willing to lend me some paper either didn’t believe my story or didn’t care. I was already “Chicken Man,” though I wasn’t allowed to do much with the chickens. They hired a farmer to do that. We didn’t get along.

After the whole fall passed with no luck escaping, my attempts slowed down, then stopped altogether. I let the roots of my hair grow out because there was no point in being recognizable. No legionnaire would be looking for a dead guy, and I couldn’t imagine a demigod going to Bible camp for the sake of Bible camp.

Until about spring, I was completely noncommunicative except a few hisses when anyone tried to touch me. That was when Pam came to camp and scared off the farmer.

As soon as she heard about the crazy mute groundskeeper she started shoving sign language lessons down my throat. I tried to run her off, but she’s stubborn as an elephant.

The hired farmer quit at that same time. As soon as I had the appropriate vocabulary I told Pam about his hobby. She found a dead rat in the soccer field, chopped it up and put it in his food. No amount of bribery could get him back on the job and they never found the culprit.

I’m so proud of her. Don’t tell anyone I said that.

(“That sounds...”)

Disproportionate? Listen, you don’t know what that farmer did in his free time.

I took over his job feeding the chickens. My avia taught me how to take augury from chicken feeding patterns as well as the usual method. Of all the odd things I know how to do, I did not take ex tripudiis to be the thing that would save me. ~~I’ve been waiting my whole life for a monster to challenge me to a fiddling contest and it hasn’t happened yet~~

(“Stop, stop, stop. How does that work?”)

~~There’s an instrument called a violin,~~

(“THE CHICKENS.”)

That’s like flipping a coin. Ask the chickens a question and throw them food. If they eat it quickly the answer is yes. If they do something else the answer is something else.

(“Very specific.”)

Shut up. I knew a half-blood was coming because I asked. Unfortunately I didn’t think to ask if it were a Roman or not. I especially didn’t think to ask if it were _you._

(“I’m assuming the chickens running into the woods is a bad omen?”)

It’s abysmal. The last time something like that happened, Consul Mancinus lost a battle so badly the Senate handed him over to the enemy buck naked.

(“Haha, ouch. What did you ask?”)

If I could escape without you.

(“Then stop being an ass so we can get out of here.”)

I’m an officer of Rome and you’re a pair of rando Greeks who walked into the wrong day camp by accident. There shouldn’t be a “we” in this conversation. I’m being forced to choose between committing treason or rotting in this hellhole for the rest of my life, but you know, heavens forbid I have a manners crisis!

(“The camps made peace after Gaea’s defeat, so there’s no ‘treason’ involved.”)

And I’m supposed to believe that from you? One of you set my town on fire and the other set ME on fire! The shot from the Argo got so close to my family’s house it singed the dog!

(“I hate to say it, Nico, but he makes a good point.”)

Thank you! Finally someone with sense.

(Nico pinched Leo’s arm. “Hey, sidebar?” They crossed the room. “What the hell are you talking about? You know this is the guy who declared himself king of Rome and tried to burn down your house, right?”

“I’m trying to butter him up. He’s still an asshole, but he might be our only shot at getting out of here.” Leo glanced towards Octavian, who was picking at the stitches on his side. “He’s loyal to Rome, sure, but didn’t the Romans execute Christians?”

“And the other way around, after Constantine rose to power.”

“Either way, I don’t think he’s shacked up with Abraham. Just on principle, y’know?”

Nico sighed. “This goes against everything I believe in.”

“If it makes you feel better, we’re all in that boat,” Leo said.)

Do you have any idea how they brought me back?

(“We were hoping you knew.”)

Hill says it was by the power of God.

(“Dude, do you know how many near-death experiences we’ve had? If God were real we would’ve met him by now.”)

We can’t

(Pam tackled Octavian before he finished, sending the pen streaking across the paper.)

* * *

Nico decided to leave Octavian alone. Well, not alone, but Octavian refused to continue his interrogation in front of her. Nico had the suspicion that Pam wasn’t clued in on everything. She didn’t seem surprised by the tattoo at all but asked what he and Leo were doing there.

“Are they on the list?” she said skeptically after a moment.

Octavian shook his head and signed something.

“Well, I was going to play cards,” she said, shaking a paper box, “but now I want to know what’s going on. Are these your people?”

Leo whispered into his ear, “We should go.”

Nico jumped back from the woosh of warm air. He was a naturally cold person, but he rarely noticed unless Leo was standing close to him, radiating heat the way he did. “I’ll go, I’ll go. Just don’t do that again,” he grumbled.

When they left, Pam and Octavian had cards spread out. It felt strange, watching the Roman centurion who’d become drunk with power not even a year ago... look half-embarrassed as he began losing at Uno to a little girl. Nico felt uncomfortable letting a kid sit so close to that guy. It felt like any second, he might whip out a ceremonial knife and stab her like one of those teddy bears.

Nico was anxious to get out of the infirmary—there was something else he had to take care of.

“Did you see where Ezra went?” Nico said.

Leo looked surprised. “Maybe by the river? Why?”

“I need to talk to him about something.” Standing outside the infirmary doors, the tower lurked to their right.

“Okay, but tell me what it is first. And promise not to rip his dick off or something.”

Nico afterwards slid down the incline of the river bank, hopped over the stream of water, and arrived at the base of the singular tree holding the bank’s mud intact. Behind it was the great green expanse of the soccer field. A pair of legs dangled from a low branch. Nico heard faint screaming and drums from above him. “Should you be climbing trees with your fingers like that?” he called up.

Ezra did not answer.

“Hello?” Nico picked up a pebble and threw it at him. “Hey!”

Ezra took out his headset and the faint screaming stopped. “Huh?” He looked down. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”

“We need to talk. Preferably somewhere I don’t have to shout at you,” Nico said.

Ezra came down. His right hand was mummified into a white mitten. “If you want an apology, I’ll rightly give you one,” he said, scratching the thick layer of bandage. “I don’t appreciate your presence, but that’s no reason to snap at you.”

“I’ll gladly listen to that apology, but first, can we go somewhere private?”

Ezra looked at his watch. He looked disappointed. “I guess.”

Nico took him through the fields and the open spaces. The fine dirt of the footpath was stirred by their footsteps, creating a small dust storm around their ankles. “Can you remember what happened in the chapel?” Nico asked.

“Eh, Teresa had a bad run-in with a demon. It happens.”

Nico blinked in surprise. “You act like you’ve seen this before.”

Ezra shrugged nonchalantly. “Weird things lurk in that forest. God only knows why we don’t burn it down.”

“Hmm.” Nico felt the knife shift in his jacket. “Are you the only person who notices this?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever tried telling someone else?”

“I don’t see why I should. I’ve never heard of anyone else getting confronted by those creatures, and I can take care of them myself.” The path they had followed wound past a group of children playing dodgeball, or perhaps some made-up ball game that kids played. Nico stopped. “Why are you so interested in this?”

The children called time-out and walked to the sidelines. A kid who we won’t describe sat down on the grass—he’s relevant in this scene only.

Nico removed Apollo’s knife from his pocket and unwrapped it from the sweatshirt scrap he’d placed it in. Ezra recoiled. “Relax. I’m not threatening you.” Nico held up the knife so it glinted in the light. “Ezra, I want you to watch this very closely.”

Nico crouched and tapped the kid on the shoulder. He looked up as if noticing Nico for the first time. “Yeah?”

“You want to see a magic trick, kid?”

He smiled. “Okay.”

Nico waved the knife slowly, then shoved it into the kid’s chest.

Before Ezra was done gasping, the blade already passed through his body.

Nico held the knife in place so Ezra could process what he was seeing. The kid touched his chest, confused. He was not harmed in any way despite the knife being buried in it all the way up to the handle. It was like his body was made of air. “Cool,” he said, far too casually for the situation. He was almost bored.

Another kid called for him. “You can go now,” Nico said, taking the knife out. There was no blood. “Thanks for letting me do that.”

“Whatever, man.”

And the kid ran off without ever really noticing the physical impossibility.

“I could replicate this with any one of those kids,” Nico said, “or any chicken in your coops—Leo thought I should do that instead, but I think this illustrated my point better.”

Ezra stared at the shining dagger. “What is that?”

Nico stumbled to his feet. Squatting like that was not kind to his bad leg. “Celestial bronze. It’s… selective about what can touch it and what can’t.” He held the point to his own fingertip and pressed down hard enough to draw a spot of blood. “Ow,” he said flatly.

Ezra watched the blood drip down Nico’s finger, bright red in the sunshine. “So it can cut you… and it can cut me. Why?”

“Because my father is a pagan god. And apparently, so is yours.”

“Ha!” Ezra sounded like he was punched in the throat. “I’m not—”

“The monsters, which only attack demigods, attack you,” Nico said, listing the reasons on his fingers. “You see through the Mist, which keeps mortals from seeing them. And celestial bronze, which can only cut magical creatures, cuts you. You should be at Camp Half-Blood, not Camp Gilead.”

“No. No-no-no,” Ezra objected. “You’ve made a mistake. I’m not going anywhere.”

“The knife doesn’t lie.”

“Does it? What’s keeping you from tricking my eyes?” Ezra waved his hand in front of his face flippantly. “You could just be trying to freak me out!”

Nico felt a twinge of annoyance. This was not going to be as easy as Leo thought it would be. “What would I stand to gain by tricking you? No offense, Ezra, but having you on my side isn’t that useful. I’m telling you this as a courtesy.”

“I don’t want your courtesy.”

“And I don’t care. Do whatever you want—but you _are_ a demigod. Whether you like it or not.”

Ezra either smiled or bared his teeth, Nico couldn’t tell which. “The word you’re looking for is ‘camp counselor.’”

“The word I’m looking for I can’t say because there are children in this field.”

Ezra laughed dismissively, but there was a clear look of horror in his eyes. He was pale and sweating. Nico could feel the wavelength of his life dip strangely—as if he was in the middle of falling off a cliff. “I don’t need this.”

He walked off, clutching at his bandaged hand. Nico sighed. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“With luck, away from you,” Ezra said firmly.

And then he turned, and went down the path into the forest.

* * *

Shaking down his dead coworker’s grandma was not how Jason had wanted to spend his afternoon.

He had bits and pieces of his memory back, mostly dredged up by Frank and Hazel when they made reference to Roman traditions and running jokes. Lucretia Oswald once left an old toilet on her front porch for a month before the battle at Mount Tamalpais. When the onagers began running out of things to launch, civilians volunteered furniture as ammo—including the famous toilet, which, legend had it, landed right in Krios’s open mouth as he screamed his war cry.

But anyway, this was how Jason remembered where Lucretia lived.

In suburban New Rome, there was a house on the corner with creaking floorboards and peeling yellow paint. The elderly woman sat on a rocking chair on the porch, head tilted back, eyes obscured by a wide-brimmed hat. A fluffy sighthound with a banana-shaped snout lay on the ground next to her.

Jason touched down gently at the foot of the porch-stairs and went up. The hound sniffed at him with its strange snout. Jason gave it a quick pat on the head. It sneezed in surprise and backed up.

Lucretia did not stir at all, which worried him. “Mrs. Oswald?”

She continued lying there.

“Mrs. Oswald?” Jason cautiously pressed two fingers against her neck.

He was met with a punch in the face. “Booyah!”

Jason screamed. Not because of the punch, but because of the heart attack she had given him. The hound jumped up and barked.

“Achilles, heel,” Lucretia commanded. The hound, Achilles, pranced to her side and sat down.

Lucretia leaned forward and squinted at him. Her glass eye twitched. “Now let’s have a look at you... ah, you’re that Jason boy. I remember you. You beat out my grandson for praetor.” She picked up her cane and stood. “Not that I’m upset—I voted for you.”

“Thank you?” Jason said hesitantly.

Lucretia opened the front door and hung her hat on a peg. “I’d be safe to assume this is about Gilead, yes? I heard about the list. Are you going about interrogating everyone on it? That sounds foolhardy.”

“Uh, yes,” Jason replied. It was hard to think of a response when Lucretia was answering her own questions. He wondered if she’d augured this conversation in advance.

“Have you gotten ahold of Maxima yet?”

“I was hoping you could tell me where to find her,” he admitted. “Apparently she was last seen during the Giant War.”

“Your guess is as good as mine. My granddaughter’s a mercenary—if she’s doing her job right, you won’t see her at all. But that’s not the answer you wanted, was it?” she said, moving into the kitchen. “Sit down, I’ll get some tea. And don’t turn me down. I already made you a glass and it would be an awful waste.”

When she came back in the room, she gave Jason a glass of sweet tea and tossed an animal cracker at Achilles. The cracker sailed through the air above Jason’s head. Achilles jumped and caught it in his mouth, looking rather like an airborne piece of shag carpet. “He’s a good dog,” Jason said over the crunching sounds.

“He’s Octavian’s.”

“Really? He named his dog after a Greek?”

“Yes, because the dog has too much hair and humps everything in sight. His words, not mine.”

“Ah.” Jason had made a good decision to not wear his beads. “Mrs. Oswald—”

“Call me Lucretia, sonny. Mr. Oswald’s been dead sixteen years,” she said, sitting and drinking tea.

“...I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I’m not. I killed him, but that’s a long and irrelevant story.” Jason waited for the augur to say “just kidding,” but she didn’t. She quickly changed topic. “You’re interested in the documents I burned.”

“Yes,” Jason said cautiously. “I actually did sift through those ashes. One of those fires doesn’t have any.”

“Ah, you got me there.”

“...You really burned those documents and disposed of the ashes.”

“Burned, yes. Disposed of, no.” She chuckled and shook her head. “I’m terrible at disposing of things. Those ashes are in a Tupperware container on my kitchen counter. Are you _really_ desperate enough to try and piece together a few bits of burnt paper?”

Jason’s jaw tightened. “Lucretia, I got a call a couple hours ago telling me my friend was blinded while leaving Camp Gilead. This is the least I can do for her.”

Lucretia set down her sweet tea. “...I suppose Mars didn’t say nothing about ashes.” She stood. “Come on back, I’ll make that box of dirt your problem.”

* * *

The doctor held up a foam model of a brain and gently touched one end with a pen. More for Percy’s benefit than anyone else’s. “Your car impacted the tree with enough force for your brain to bounce against the front of your skull. This caused bruising to the temporal lobe, here. We relieved the swelling, but some vision problems after the surgery aren’t uncommon.”

Percy felt no less weak than when he’d first heard Annabeth admit she couldn’t see. “Is it permanent?” she said, looking at the poster behind the doctor. Percy squeezed her hand.

“It shouldn’t be. You’re seeing light, colors. You could need glasses, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you made a full recovery.”

Annabeth sighed. “Great. How long will it be until I stop stumbling around?”

“It could be as few as three days.”

Her brow furrowed in thought. “Three—” She suddenly leveraged herself against Percy.

“Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?” Percy said.

“Help me get to the bathroom. Sorry, can we put a rain check on this?” she said to the doctor.

The doctor nodded. “I’ll come back in an hour. Then we can discuss your options.”

Percy led Annabeth into the bathroom. She immediately gripped the sink’s edge and fumbled for the faucet. “What’s wrong?”

“I had a hunch about something,” she muttered, “when I was visiting Camp Gilead. Then I crashed my car, and that almost confirmed my suspicions...” She turned on the hot water, sending steam up. “Give me a drachma.”

“What—”

“I’m making a call. Give me a drachma.” Percy placed a drachma in her hand and she dropped it in the running sink. “O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering. Show Chiron at Camp Half-Blood.”

The steam wiggled and Chiron’s ghostly image appeared. He didn’t notice the message at first, but when he did he almost jumped out of his wheelchair. “Annabeth! Hazel Levesque told me you were in an accident. Are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine, but that’s not important. I need you to come clean about this.”

“You... what?”

“Chiron, the camp we’re dealing with is a Bible camp. Be honest.”

She leaned forward.

“Is there a God?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note: Octavian's still a jerk, but he's a jerk who's been through a pretty major rough patch and is stuck between a rock and a hard space. Whether his friendship with the kid is genuine or just convenient for him (she was the only person who could communicate with him before Leo showed up) is up to your interpretation.
> 
> Also, Leo understands ASL and Nico doesn't. While they were both homeless for a while, Leo spent more time shacking up with other homeless people (some of which knew ASL). Nico avoided them, favoring ghosts. This had risks and benefits on both ends--Leo almost got grabbed by traffickers a few times and Nico got sick from eating roadkill because he didn't know where to get clean food.
> 
> I've already seen fics where Octavian comes back, but I haven't seen any where Apollo notices him crawling from his grave. Which is a damn shame, because Apollo had some pretty strong words for the guy in BoO. The only reason he'd be happy to have Octavian back would be so he could personally kick his ass. Which he does here with vigor.
> 
> I originally had that as a flashback from Octavian's perspective, but believe it or not, it was too depressing. Who would've thought that getting the most important part of you ripped out by basically your dad would be such a bleak scene? It made the whole chapter tonally weird, but I'll post it as a deleted scene later. I'm not letting something like that sit in my scraps!
> 
> Ezra is something that y'all didn't seem to notice last chapter. Eidolon!Teresa tried to cut her throat, but Ezra stopped her by grabbing the blade. It's a celestial bronze blade. Mortals can't touch it. Nico deciding to tell Ezra about it could either work for or against them. Though he might be hitting that mental wall for a while...
> 
> Man. Literal toilet humor is not something I'd thought I'd resort to, but here we are. That scene is there mostly to jog your memory that A) Jason's still in New Rome, B) Lucretia exists, and C) there might be something left of those documents. Also, D) Octavian has a dog, which might be important later. Achilles is a borzoi BTW.
> 
> Annabeth asking the real questions. Thank goodness, she's going to be okay, but she seems shaken up by the exact number of days it'll take for her to regain her vision. I wonder why?
> 
> So yeah. Stay tuned for Epistles II.


	10. Epistles II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> me, coughing blood: your romantic scenes are coming soon... i swear...
> 
> nangelo di angelo, cocking a gun with tears streaming down his face: swear on the river styx

(Found under pillow in Cabin 13, Camp Half-Blood.)

Whoever found this letter, probably Hazel,

If you’ve found this, something happened to me and I didn’t get back to camp by midnight. A lot of things could’ve happened but most likely I was kidnapped by Abraham.

I wish I could give you a contingency for this, but I can’t. At the time of writing I don’t know what’s happening in Gilead. But here’s what I can do: I’m going to meet up with Leo. We’re going to make a plan. It might take a few days, but we _will_ get out of there.

And, yeah, that’s it. It’s late and my inspiring words are all dried up. I probably won’t even need this letter.

Sincerely,  
Nico di Angelo

* * *

(On Praetor Reyna’s desk.)

FORM 10-M — STANDARD DREAM REPORT

LEGIONNAIRE: Praetor Frank Zhang

ESTIMATED RECALL: 60%

LIKELIHOOD OF RELEVANT INFORMATION: High

DESCRIPTION: Leo Valdez and Nico di Angelo showed up in my dreams last night. I don’t think they did it intentionally, but I still think it’s worth noting.

I don’t have a lot of really cohesive dreams, so the tree is the first thing I can solidly remember. I was standing in front of a river. Nico and Leo were standing in the river, and they were right next to this big tree, with all these low twisted branches. I looked up, and I couldn’t find the top of the tree. The trunk got smaller until it disappeared.

And they were down at the bottom, in the water, hacking away at it with axes. Wood chips just flying everywhere.

Blood was gushing from Leo’s hands. Blood was gushing from—everywhere, pretty much. It was soaking through his shirt, running down the axe’s handle. But I don’t think it was really him. Like, I wasn’t communicating with the real Leo, at Gilead. Maybe it was just the Fates trying to tell me something. But the injuries were real.

Nico might’ve been real too, maybe he was just out of it. I don’t know him well enough to tell.

High up on the tree, a person was moving around in the branches. Nico kept arguing with him. Something about a ladder? Yeah, Nico was yelling stuff like “it’s not a ladder, get down from there before you break your neck.” And the other guy was insisting that it was a ladder and he was going to get to the top. I remember thinking it would take him a while. Probably much longer than the time it would take for the tree to come down.

After a while of me staring, Leo turned and smiled at me.

I vividly remember him saying: “Hey, Frank! Can you get some of your guys to help us cut this thing down?” And he slapped the trunk.

“This bitch is thicker than a bowl of oatmeal.”

I woke up screaming, for some reason.

* * *

 (Single scrap of paper found in Lucretia Oswald’s Tupperware container.)

—RT XII: EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE AND THE THEORY OF CH—

(The rest of it is burned to illegibility.)

* * *

 (Excerpt from journal Bible found in Camp Gilead break room.)

6/11/12

Um.

Yikes.

Campers have tried freaking me out before. I’ve been threatened! I’ve been beat up! I’ve been cussed out! People have thrown all sorts of illusions and flirtations and arguments at me!

Why is this upsetting me so badly? I pray and I pray but I still don’t feel right.

We sang hymns at the campfire tonight. I’ve never felt so uncomfortable singing hymns.

Every year I wait for summer to get the opportunity to melt in with so many people, but after that boy Nico told me what he did, I can’t do it. Everyone was just a blob of people around me. This is when I’m supposed to be in the middle of society. How do I feel so alone? Is Nico right? Are you trying to tell me something?

Am I

No. This has got to be some kind of test. Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Dismas was a thief. Zacchaeus was a traitor to the nation.

Answers will come. Answers always come.

(Entry is written next to highlighted verse, Proverbs 1:10.)

* * *

 (Found in pink flower print diary under Cabin 5 mattress, Camp Gilead.)

Dear diary,

Another boy came into camp today. Octavian’s not super happy to see him either. He’s not being specific, but something tells me they’re his people. But like. Not HIS people. I guess?

I was certain that his tattoo was an ID thing, but neither of them had it. Either I’m wrong or they don’t have ID for some reason. I’m getting really sick of him dancing around my questions. When I went to the infirmary, he was writing something on a piece of paper.

The second I asked what it was, he looked me dead in the eye and ate it. I blinked and it was gone.

Not sure whether to be impressed or horrified. I should ask him to teach me how to do that. That way, the next time Nancy throws her shoe at me, I can swallow it whole and get both of us in trouble!

* * *

 (Excerpts from a copy of But… You’re a Gaul, by Julius Oswald found in Camp Gilead chicken coop.)

(Circled passage:) _Augur Octavius broke up the group. “What’s going on here?” he demanded._

_The legionnaires looked guiltily amongst themselves. None made any attempt to hide the carved stone pipe—the smell was perceptible no matter what they did. Octavius snatched the pipe away and sniffed its smoking contents. “Is this cannabis?”_

_They all looked at their sandals._

_“You should be ashamed of yourselves!” he barked. “You’re lucky I won’t report you to your commanders! Go back to your posts!”_

_The legionnaires did, grumbling about where he could shove his ceremonial dagger._

_As soon as those legionnaires were out of eyeshot, Octavius looked around to make sure it was safe. Then, trying to play it cool, he stuck the pipe in his mouth and inhaled a big puff of devil lettuce._

_Unfortunately, that was when Praetor Rhea came out the doorway. “Octavius?”_

_Octavius, even more unfortunately, gasped in surprise._

_And that’s why Praetor Rhea was frantically punching Octavius in the stomach as he choked on a weed pipe._

(Written in margins:) DAY 317

DAMN IT, JUJU, I TOLD YOU NOT TO WRITE ABOUT THAT DAY! NOW EVERYONE’S GOING TO SNICKER ABOUT IT IF I GET HOME.

I MEAN, WHEN I GET HOME. CONFIDENCE IS KEY.

* * *

 (Found in Nancy Bobofit’s pocket.)

I leave for 5 fucking minutes and everything goes sideways? I step out to have a delightful romp in the church dumpster and?? 3 people go to the infirmary??? WTF

Ezra was not impressed by my titties. But he’s kinda moody in general? He skipped out on all the classes he was supposed to teach and sat in his tree all day. I’m dumb as shit but I know better than to bother a man when he’s mopey.

My other options aren’t lookin too great either. I got Leo, who’s basically my little brother, and I got that emo that showed up today, who I knew was gay within 2 seconds of seeing him.

What am I supposed to do now? Fuck the chicken man?

Speakin of, I tried smoking the green stuff I found in the chicken coop. Whatever that was, it was NOT weed. I tripped real bad and woke up in the parking lot with a pocket full of cash I didn’t have earlier and no memory of the last hour. I put the rest back where I found it. Fuck that noise

Found a beat-up baseball cap in the chapel on my way out. Not sure who would want it, but it’s goin in the pile just in case

* * *

 (Written on Will Solace’s left arm.)

CALL JASON

* * *

 (On pillow in Cabin 1.)

Dear Thalia,

I love you. Don’t do anything stupid.

* * *

 (Written on back of Camp Gilead schedule, passed from one hand to another.)

Are you okay?

I’m fine

Don’t lie, Leo. Something’s wrong with your back.

How do you know, more magic?

You’ve been sitting on the edge of your seat for the whole presentation.

You got me there

How bad are you hurt?

Can we please talk about it later

I know it’s not easy opening up to a guy who could kill you with a fettuccine noodle but I’m not gonna let you suffer in silence.

Fine. It’s just my hands and my back. For real

How bad is it?

Pretty bad. It might get worse

What do you mean “worse?”

Papa Ham is. Not great. He does exorcisms, and I’m convinced that word means “steal Leo’s fucking back skin” no matter what google says

Jesus Christ.

You got that right

Is there something I can do? Aside from killing Abraham, which I will obviously do.

Not right now. Sorry

Don’t be.

This you?

(Below this, there is a doodle of Father Abraham wearing a stovepipe hat and surrounded by flames. The devil is poking him with a pitchfork and Nico is hovering above the scene with angel wings, laughing at him.)

(This paper is now on Teresa’s desk.)

* * *

 (Transcript of audio recorded on Daedalus’s laptop.)

I wish this were an inspiring speech, but here’s the facts. I believe Camp Gilead is the most dangerous threat to the Olympians, and potentially to every other god on the planet Earth. I know many would scoff at that. Of course, we _did_ fight the actual planet Earth last year. I’ve tried to reject the idea myself, but there’s a lot of evidence that I’m right, and that’s bad for pretty much everything.

When Molly Sweetwater devised the sailboat experiment, she cracked open the secrets of the universe and squashed them down into one principle: belief equals power. And everything points at that being true. Minerva isn’t a goddess of war because the Romans say she isn’t a goddess of war. Pan faded from existence due to the dying out of nature. I could go on and on.

When I drove back to Camp Half-Blood to ask about “capital g” God, halfway expecting to get a blunt “no,” I was stopped by a bright flash, and a bearded man on the road calling to me.

I swerved and hit a tree, damaging my vision for about three days.

There’s another account like mine. A man who was on the road to a city, who was stopped by a vision, and then went blind for three days. You know, Saint Paul. A Christian figure.

At a baseline of ten people per group, Sweetwater’s boat started moving. The Abrahamic belief base has four billion people in it.

Now, here’s Chiron’s answer to my question:

 _There is no God._ The man does not exist.

So I say, “what do you mean, there’s no God? There’s a whole camp full of God! I had to swerve to avoid hitting God on my way out!”

But I asked Chiron, and Mr. D., and Magnus, and Sadie freaking Kane. I’ve done everything short of storm into Zeus’s throne room and demand to know what’s going on. Nobody in the pantheons has ever encountered this guy. But he’s definitely not metaphysical—I’ve seen Jesus with my own two eyes, and he has sent me the divine equivalent of a strongly worded letter.

This can mean one of several things, and none of them are good.

The first is that God is dead, and Gilead is following his remnants. The common understanding of how gods die is that they fade from existence due to lack of worship. The problem with this is that God, again, has four billion worshippers. If he’s dead, that means we’re wrong about what kills gods. The whole Greek pantheon could just die one day, and that would be the ballgame.

The second is that God is a typical god. This would be pretty bad, again because of the huge faith base. Not to mention God is hostile towards other gods. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and all that jazz. If God were playing by the rules, he would’ve killed us already.

The last option is the worst. The last option is that God hasn’t killed us, because he’s busy with something else.

Oh boy, more history. Bear with me here.

Thanksgiving at my house is awkward. Some of my relatives are super-religious and my dad super-isn’t. They get into yearly arguments about creationism and whether dinosaurs existed or not.

Basically, Christians believe that God created the world in six days. There’s a theory that those “days” weren’t twenty-four hours—they each lasted billions of years. I thought that was just a neat idea at Thanksgiving, but now I’m really thinking.

It’s posited that the world is created in six days, and then God rested on day seven.

There’s no change in terminology.

What if he’s been resting until now? What if everything we’ve seen and heard of from that God has been the tip of the iceberg?

If that’s the case, God’s not dead, but soon we will be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It only figures that the Romans would have paperwork regarding dreams. If ominous dreams are ubiquitous to demigods, why wouldn't they? 
> 
> But... you're a Gaul is written by Julius Oswald, aka one of Octavian's siblings. Hence the nickname. Also the obvious substitutes for Reyna and Octavian within the book. In case you didn't get it, Octavian really did choke on a weed pipe and his brother immortalized it in his shitty romance novel. 
> 
> Romance and suffering will soon ensure for the main pair. Trust me on this one
> 
> I'm going on hiatus for a while. School's kicking my ass out here and I need to take time to study my quizlets. Make good choices y'all


	11. One Lot for the Lord

It was early morning on day two of Nico’s venture into hell on earth.

Teresa’s fake nails tapped the desk’s scratched surface rhythmically as she stared down at the back of Nico’s schedule. Nico sat in the chair opposite, waiting.

Teresa’s counseling office was obsessively maintained, with every pencil on the desk set parallel to the next. However, Camp Gilead’s dysfunction still found a way. The carpet was crusty with age, the books on her shelf were all fake, and her roomba did a funny dance across the floor instead of moving smoothly, afflicted with a noisy roomba-cough.

Teresa finally looked up. She slid the piece of paper across the desk. “Tell me what this is.”

Nico damn well knew what it was, and so did Teresa. She’d snatched it out of his hand at the morning service, fumed silently, and whisked it away to whatever hidey-hole she had until now, when she called him down to his office. She already hated him yesterday morning. Now that she was back to her senses and aware that he’d basically fistfought her in the ladies’ room, any pretenses of civility were gone.

“It’s a drawing,” Nico said firmly.

“A drawing of what?”

“Me and Abraham frolicking through a field of flowers.”

Teresa’s frown deepened. “I don’t appreciate your tone.”

“I don’t appreciate yours, either. Glad to see we have something in common.” Nico twisted the little skull on his ring. Every ghost in a mile’s radius became agitated, sending a shiver up his spine.

“If I had it my way, you would be taking a long walk off a short pier, mister. But it looks like my husband sees something he needs in you,” Teresa said, picking at her index finger. The glue on that fake nail came loose, popping the red plastic off and onto the carpet. The sputtering roomba chugged towards it. “Likewise, he asked me to let _him_ talk to you himself.”

Pick, pick, pick. The roomba ate up ten plastic fingernails.

Abraham Hill knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Teresa said evenly.

Abraham whisked Nico away into a still and empty room It was near the back of the lumpy, tumorous mass of the reception building, one of several rooms behind a door labeled “SENIOR STAFF ONLY.” Nico was sat down in a wooden chair around a circular table. The chair squeaked as it was dragged across the hardwood floor. With a twinge of disgust, he realized this must be Abraham’s personal quarters.

I could just kill him, Nico thought impulsively, the celestial bronze knife still itching against his ankle. He’d successfully concealed it for two days, but with the omnipresent surveillance he feared he might lose it. Nico’s eye twitched. I could just pull it out and stab him in the heart, he thought.

But then what?

He imagined Abraham’s corpse lying face-down on the planks. Would he be able to run and get Leo to escape? Even if they somehow did escape, everyone would know it was him. The long arm of the law would really be bearing down on Camp Half-Blood.

Nico bit his tongue.

Abraham, after a good five minutes of silence, finally spoke. “Mr. Di Angelo, do you know what happens to bad people when they die?”

“They go to hell,” Nico said decisively.

Abraham kept his eyes on the horizon. “Can you describe hell?”

“A lake full of fire.”

“Very good. Do you think you’ll go to hell when you die?”

“Bold of you to assume I’ll die.”

Abraham paused for a shorter time. He stood to walk into another room. Nico did not follow. “You may have heard some terrible things about me.”

“Yes.” Nico heard clinking glass and pouring liquid.

“Most of them are true. I am capable of great violence at times, but I do not choose my targets blindly. Only those who are unwilling. The youths in this camp are difficult. A bit of soul-scouring is nothing compared to how they might suffer in the future.” Abraham emerged from the next room holding a steaming teacup and set it on the table.

“That’s no excuse to hurt people.”

Abraham picked up the cup of tea, though he made no move to drink from it. “Look at this teacup.”

Nico looked at the teacup. “What about it?”

“Its sides are thin as paper. Look at the detail on it. See these painted flowers? Look how delicate they look. A teacup like this isn’t made in a factory. Someone sat down and painted this cup. A craftsman with years of experience, most possibly. Someone with thoughts, and dreams, and hopes. Maybe the hypothetical craftsman isn’t the best _person_ , maybe he drinks his money away or sleeps with hired men, but that doesn’t invalidate that a human being’s hard work went into this teacup. Hours of fine work, with a trained eye and the learned fine, steady motion of the hand.”

Abraham paused, stood, and sipped from the cup.

“This man, with all his thoughts, and his dreams, and his hopes, will go to hell,” and he let go of the teacup.

The teacup dropped towards the hard floor.

Nico lunged forward and caught it.

He was sprawled on the ground, both hand and intact teacup inches from the floor. The tea spilled out of the cup, scalding his hand, but he refused to let go.

The pain was not any worse than the River Phlegethon.

Abraham glared down at him.

“You may care. But higher powers don’t.”

Nico’s mouth twitched, as if only a fly was deviling him.

“I assume that this is all a result of a hard adjustment period for you.” Nico placed the teacup back on the table, his hand shaking. “But you need to get your act together, and so does Leo, if he wishes to have a fulfilling life.”

“Mmm.” Nico stuffed his hand in his pocket.

“Leo cannot go down the path he has chosen without dying a swift and untimely death—” That Abraham would cause. “—and that is the fact of the matter. Brutality or not, God or not, he is a delinquent and a dropout. I have had many successes and many failures—just two years ago, a camper relapsed on opium and fell off a building while high. What could Leo _do_ in a few years? He barely has a school record. He barely has a place to live. I’m trying to give him a life and this is how he repays me.”

Nico stared at his murky reflection in what remained of the tea.

Abraham sighed and looked at his watch. “But I digress. Go find Teresa. She’s got something to show you.”

Nico walked out muttering about where Abraham could put his teacup.

The schedule said that Nico should be going to the showers now. But Nico didn’t have his schedule, nor did he care about it. He fumed to himself, “I will kill Abraham, I will kill Abraham,” but not audibly, only mouthing the words.

He wound through the disorganized tumor. It wasn’t a fun experience. Camp Gilead had doors in all sorts of places, and only half of them led anywhere.

Nico opened a door that looked like an exit and found a broom closet. He opened a door that looked like an exit and found an empty room. He opened a door that looked like an exit and found a brick wall.

Finding himself hopelessly lost, Nico ended up outside Abraham’s office. Another person was inside, and they had a muffled conversation. “Now, Jud, money’s tight. We can’t afford to pay you.”

“I’ll take the room and board as its own pay,” a gruff man responded. “I sold the farm to pay my daughter’s tuition.”

“Damn. Do you intend to work in the coop again?”

“I do indeed—as well as clear the forest and sow some corn. What with things going the way they are, these kids can’t eat Lunchables forever...”

Nico wracked his brain for directions. So, they went up a staircase and—no, wait, now it looks like he’s in the staff area again. In the hall leading from the stairwell, he could hear some guitar riffs drifting from a nearby room. Maybe it was a part of the track, but he could have sworn he heard moaning from the same room.

...Oh.

Ew!

Nico descended until he could forget that noise, and by the time he did he’d hit the bottom of the stairwell. It was damp and cold in the basement. The walls were lined with shelves and shelves of goods. Canned food, painkillers, batteries. The only parts of the wall that weren’t taken up were the metal doors.

He had already turned to go back up the stairs when he heard a loud thump, like a kicked sack of flour.

Someone spit. “Okay. Okay,” Leo sighed from behind the door. “You’ve made your point.”

Nico stopped.

Another thump rang out. “Quiet.”

Slowly, Nico went to the door, and opened it.

Leo was lying on the cold ground, red dripping from his lips, clutching at the green shirt around his shoulders. His mouth opened and closed like a fish. Teresa stood over him. There was a stick in her hand, and the knuckles upon it were white. “Nico,” she said. “Come here.”

Nico stood in the door.

“Come _here!_ ” she said, bringing her foot down on Leo’s side. He yelped and scrambled away from her.

Nico came forward. His heart had leapt in rate, so his legs were jelly from adrenaline.

“Take off your shirt,” she commanded. At first, Nico thought it was directed at him.

Leo shook his head no. “He doesn’t need to see that.”

“Take it _off_ , or I will take it off for you.”

Leo hesitantly reached back for the collar of his shirt and pulled the fabric over his head, grunting with effort.

Nico reeled. He hadn’t seen the extent of the injuries until now, and even now Leo was trying to cover himself. It didn’t work. Nico still saw the mottled bruises and leaky welts that his hands couldn’t reach. He reached out for Leo, but Teresa held the stick up when he did. “Listen.”

Teresa swiped at Leo’s face hard. Leo was fast enough to block it, but the rough branch still took skin with it, bloodying his arm. He gasped, but said nothing.

“For reasons that are beyond me, I’m not allowed to harm you. But I’m allowed to harm your friend, this one,” she said, grabbing Leo roughly by the jaw. Her fingers, unencumbered by the plastic nails, dented his flesh. Leo spat on her blouse for lack of height to do the same to her face. “So here’s the arrangement. Every time you—” She pointed the stick at Nico. “—step out of line, he—” She jerked Leo’s head in Nico’s direction. “—gets another ten whacks. And you watch.”

Nico’s jaw ached with anger. But Teresa was in control, and she knew it.

Leo shook his head frantically. Teresa disregarded him.

The next few minutes were the slowest and most heartrending few minutes of Nico’s life.

By the final blow, Leo was barely reacting. His fingers twitched a little as the stick struck him, but he was sweating badly, curls stuck to his forehead. Teresa intentionally scraped the bark across his wounds, which got a strangled noise out of him before Nico said, “Stop, you’ve already hit him ten times!”

“‘Oh, stop, stop!’” she mocked. “‘Don’t hurt him!’” She took a bright green bottle from her pants pocket, popped the lid, and squirted unidentified fluid on his back. Leo’s eyes went rolling back as his hands and knees gave out.

Nico clapped a hand over his mouth.

Teresa didn’t seem up to beating him at any further length. She herself was out of breath and soaking wet. She was an older woman, and doing any extended thrashing appeared beyond her means.

“Whatever. Have him,” she said, throwing the stick aside and wobbling to the exit. “See if I care.”

Nico rushed forward and cupped Leo’s face. “Leo. Leo. Hey, look at me.”

Leo looked through him, not at him. “Hnnn?”

“Hey. Can you tell me my name?” Nico said. His eyes went to the discarded bottle at the side of the room. The fluid on Leo was sticky and sour-smelling.

“Olive Garden...?” Leo whimpered.

“Close enough. How’s the pain?”

“Mmmmm...” Leo shakily held up nine fingers.

“Worse than the leg was?” Nico said, examining the damage as delicately as he could. There were bits of bark embedded in the wounds. He doubted he could get all of it without tweezers.

Leo yelped at the slightest probing. “Yeah. Stop.”

Nico wasn’t used to Leo being so terse, so he did. “You know what she poured on you?”

“Lemon juice.” Leo grimaced. Sure enough, the bright green bottle had a picture of a lemon on it. “Can’t you... shadow travel? Infirmary? Please?” he begged.

Helplessness churned in Nico’s gut. “I can’t. It hasn’t worked for me since yesterday.”

“How does it _not work?_ ” Leo said, clearly struggling with his brave face. Nico was familiar with that look half-bloods got when they really wanted to burst into tears, but needed to get something done first.

Nico sighed. “I saw some medical stuff on the shelves. I can patch you up here.”

When he pulled away, Leo’s hand darted out to grip his. “Don’t leave.”

“I’ll only be gone for a second.” Nico felt his stomach turn over with shock. Campers clinging to healers for comfort wasn’t unheard of, but campers clinging to _him_ was... new. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. “I’m just stepping away to get bandages.”

Leo bowed his head and let go. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Nico came back with a first aid kit and gently cleaned Leo up. It seemed like with every wound he managed, he just found another. “Does she do this a lot?”

Leo worried his lip. “The beating, yes. The game she’s playing with you, specifically? I don’t think she’s done that before.” That response was good. Well, not the content of it, that was horrifying. Nico was more glad that Leo was stringing together full sentences. He wasn’t in so much pain he couldn’t think.

“This is going to sting,” Nico said, taking out a pack of alcohol wipes. “Bite down on something?”

Leo unbuckled his belt from his hips, putting the leather between his teeth. He groaned loudly as Nico tried to get the blood off.

Nico took out the tweezers and offered Leo an orange bottle. “Pain medicine.”

Leo laughed bitterly, drool trailing from his tool belt. “You couldn’t have given me that earlier?” But he took it.

They kept patching Leo in silence.

There were scars on his chest, on his back, his wrists. Everywhere.

“Why did you never talk about this?” Nico finally asked.

Leo shrugged. “Nobody asked.”

“This amount of scarring, and nobody asked.”

“Nico, we’re half-bloods. Everybody’s got some scarring.”

“Everybody’s got _combat_ scarring,” Nico corrected. “This is obviously ritual. There’s no way nobody noticed.”

Leo paused for a very long time. “A lot of people at camp are in the same boat,” he finally said. “If we spot each other in the showers… well, we don’t ask, and we don’t tell.”

Nico intended to voice a counterargument, but it died in his throat. Instead, he kept picking the bark from Leo’s body.


	12. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we r back babey
> 
> i got my wisdom teeth out and im hurting like a lil bitch, so no write-up

Leo put his head on his knees and squeezed his eyes shut. “I hate eggs so fucking much.”

“Me too,” Nico said, patting his arm.

Leo was sitting near the warm aura of the bonfire and leaned so far forward that it could’ve set his hair alight. Not like that was a problem. Nico still tried to pull him upright, though. “Just let me die,” Leo whined.

“No. And don’t bend over like that, you’ll throw up.”

Nico guided him onto the log, bruised ribs against the raw wood, Leo’s head almost in his lap. Almost. Leo didn’t want to get in trouble again, and he imagined Nico didn’t want to get barfed on.

Gilead campers were gathered around the smoking bonfire and singing cutesy Bible camp songs, like they always did at seven o’clock on alternate weekdays. Octavian had slipped Leo and Nico some eggs, but Leo’s stomach wasn’t having it. To top it all off, Ezra, whose singing was tolerable, was not leading the singalong. Nancy was. “He’s got the whooole world in His hams—” she yowled.

“It’s ‘hands,’” Abraham corrected.

“Are you sure?” Nancy said. “I always thought it was ‘hams.’”

“Why on Earth would God have hams?”

“Maybe He’s hungry?”

This went on for much longer than it should have.

Octavian and Pam were having an argument. That, or they were flailing their arms for fun. After exchanging some particularly hurtful gestures, Pam went and sat on another log.

Octavian went to Leo. _I NEED TO SPEAK WITH NICO,_ he signed, crossing his open hands at the wrist for “Nico.” He and Pam invented new signs, sometimes. Leo realized this very recently, when Octavian used that magic thumb trick as a sign that presumably meant _graecus._ Glad to see he’d made such a strong first impression.

“Could it wait?” Leo was more in the mood to tear his own head off his shoulders than translate.

_IT’S ABOUT YOUR CAMP._

Leo raised his eyebrows. “What’s going on?”

Before Octavian could sign an answer, the clatter of a cowbell jarred them out of the conversation. They turned to Abraham. “Alright. Quiet down, now.” The crowd hushed. “We have a new hire today—or rather, a rehire. Some of you may remember him from last summer. Jud, come on out.”

A man emerged from the trees. He was large, sturdy man with a forward-leaning posture. This and the hardness of his eyes made his walk seem like that of a predatory dog. His gaze swept about with a security-camera restlessness. “Howdy, kids,” he said. His voice was gruff. “Seems I’m back again.”

Leo did not recognize this man, for he must have been hired after he ran away. Most of the kids clapped. Pam didn’t, and Octavian looked like _he_ was going to throw up.

Jud was indifferent to this. “In the next couple of days you’re not gonna see me very much. In fact, it may seem like nothing’s changed at all. But big things are gonna be happening in the forest.” His eyes rested on Leo for a brief moment. “We’re cutting down the trees.”

Leo turned to look up at Nico. Nico’s face had fallen.

“Good riddance, huh?” Nancy quipped. “All those things are good for is mosquitos.”

Jud laughed hollowly. “Indeed, young lady.”

Octavian looked like a sheet of paper in the firelight, and Pam came up with her eyebrows furrowed and took him away.

Jud kept talking. “Now, after we clear the forest, we’ll be bringing some farm equipment in here. This, of course, means a change in schedule for y’all. I’ll need help chopping the wood and plowing the land, and—yessir?” he said, pointing at Nico’s raised hand.

“Are you going to bulldoze the old chapel?” Nico asked.

“Of course. No one’s using it, so I don’t see why not.”

That gave Leo a very bad feeling for some reason, and Nico seemed to feel the same.

* * *

Nico was a ridiculously light sleeper. That’s probably why he woke up when he heard someone whispering outside the cabin.

“Don’t walk under there, that’s a camera.”

“Oh, hush. Those cameras are fake.”

“What do you mean, ‘fake?’”

“I mean they’re cardboard they spray-paint silver. Do you ever see them move? No. Because they’re fake.”

“I’ve been here my whole life. I would notice if they were fake.”

“You don’t notice a lot of things.”

Nico worried.

* * *

 

Leo snuck out of the cabin after curfew and went to the chicken coop. Octavian and Pam were sitting on top of the storage chest. Octavian looked as sick as sick could be, slouched over against the coop’s wall. _WOULD IT KILL YOU TO SLEEP IN YOUR OWN CABIN?_ he signed to her.

Pam crossed her arms. _IT’S FULL OF BUGS. THEY CRAWL ON ME AT NIGHT._

 _THEN WHY DON’T YOU LEAVE?_ Octavian signed. _JUD KNOWS IT WAS YOU._

 _YOU DON’T KNOW THAT_ , she signed back.

_YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT HE COULD DO TO YOU, EITHER._

Pam stood up. _I’M TAKING YOU WITH ME._

_CAN’T LEAVE. DON’T HAVE ANYWHERE TO GO._

“Um, Octavian?” Leo said quietly.

Octavian suddenly sat up straight. _WHAT DO YOU WANT?_

“You said you have something to tell me about Camp Half-Blood.”

Pam frowned. “What’s ‘Camp Half-Blood?’” she said, pronouncing the words slowly, like she’d never said them before.

Octavian paused for a long time. _GO BACK TO BED, PAN._

Pam looked angry, but she left.

Leo watched Pam leave, and then he looked at Octavian. “Did you not tell her anything?”

 _SHE WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND, AND I’M NOT COMFORTABLE PUTTING A RANDOM ELEVEN YEAR OLD IN DANGER._ He stoked the fire with a long stick. _OF COURSE, THE GREEKS DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT._

“Yeah, yeah, the usual ‘filthy graecus’ spiel. What can you tell me happened at Camp Half-Blood?”

Octavian drew a handful of leaves from his pocket. _THESE ARE LEAVES._

“They sure are.”

 _THESE ARE..._ He struggled to find the right sign. _PORT LEAVES? THEY IMPROVE MY ABILITIES. WHEN I EAT THESE I HAVE VISIONS OF THE FUTURE._

“Are you sure that’s not weed?”

_WOULD IT KILL YOU TO BE RESPECTFUL FOR FIVE SECONDS?_

“Maybe.”

Octavian dropped his head in his hands for a moment, then took a deep breath. Leo saw him mouth “one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten.”

“Okay, okay. What did you see?”

_POLICE. SEARCHING THE CABINS. QUESTIONING THE CENTAUR. CHILDREN BEING KICKED OUT. MAIN BUILDING ON FIRE._

“Shit.”

_SHIT INDEED._

“Well, I—how? How did this happen?” Bile rose in Leo’s throat. The wounds on his body suddenly felt like a vice. “The Mist should have stopped them!”

The cops are coming and they’re going to burn camp to the ground and everyone’s going to leave and get killed by monsters and it’s all his fault and—and—and—

_MAY I REMIND YOU THIS IS THE FUTURE? IT HASN’T HAPPENED YET. NOW STOP BREATHING SO FAST, YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE GOING TO PASS OUT. ...WAIT, ARE YOU ACTUALLY GOING TO PASS OUT?_

Leo’s eyes rolled back involuntarily. Octavian slapped him on the back so hard he felt his brain rattle inside his skull. “Ow! Jesus! What the hell, dude?”

_WAIT UNTIL YOU GET BACK TO YOUR CABIN BEFORE PASSING OUT, WOULD YOU? I CAN’T SNEAK AROUND CARRYING YOU ANYMORE. JUD WILL BE MOVING IN TOMORROW MORNING, AND THAT MIGHT BE THE END OF ME._

“What do you—” Leo cut himself off. “Jud’s the farmer you were talking about? The one Pam poisoned?”

Octavian looked away solemnly. _YES. I’M TRYING TO GET HER TO LEAVE FOR HER OWN SAFETY._

“And that isn’t going well.”

_NO._

“Jeez.” Leo let out a long sigh. “We’re just deep in the shit, aren’t we?”

_YES. AND WHAT THE HELL DID NICO DO TO EZRA?_

“What are you talking about?”

_SINCE NICO CAME TO CAMP GILEAD, EZRA HAS BEEN WALKING AROUND THE FOREST AT NIGHT MUMBLING ABOUT THE DEVIL. IT’S HONESTLY STARTING TO FREAK ME OUT._

* * *

Nico slippity-slipped out of the cabin pretending to go to the bathroom. The counselor that escorted him stood outside, and Nico crawled out the bathroom window and went back to the woods.

Leo told him how to do this trick. It came in very handy when he couldn’t sleep and needed to spy on certain young couples.

Nico moved quickly and quietly. He’d avoided detection last night, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get caught tonight. He slowed when he heard the low babble of Nancy’s speech: “It’s not poison ivy, you big pussy.”

“It’s totally poison ivy,” Ezra whispered back. There was a flashlight in his hand, and it was aimed down at his own ankles, but Nico froze nonetheless. He was only feet away from them.

“Poison ivy don’t even grow in New York.”

“Poison ivy grows everywhere!”

Nancy took his arm and dragged him out of the tangle of vines he stood in. “Hey, it was your idea to come here. I don’t like that chapel. Gives me the damn creeps.” The movement caused the flashlight to swing wildly, dangerously close to Nico.

“I’m not planning a lover’s honeymoon, Nan!” Ezra snapped, freeing himself from her grip.

Pointing the flashlight directly at Nico.

Nico held his breath.

Ezra sighed and dropped his arms. “Sorry. I’m just stressed.”

“Yeah, no shit. You’ve been freaking out all day.”

Nico felt his breath slowly let out of his lungs as he kept following them.

He’d been monitoring Ezra closely for the past couple of days. Watching him for any odd behavior. Like, Nico didn’t expect the guy to suddenly start sacrificing goats to Baal or whatever, but he had to be going through one hell of a trip.

_“Cut your hand,” Minos said. He floated tall over Nico, who at eleven didn’t even scrape five feet. “And let the blood fall into the grave.”_

_The cemetery wasn’t black, like the forest Nico was in now. It was more like gray. Gray and mushy, like mold. The sky didn’t go all the way dark, and the Irish peat was almost all the way up to his ankles. Nico had to walk in place to keep it from swallowing him._

_Nico winced, looking at the black sword’s edge, sharp enough to cut paper out of the air. “Does it have to be my blood?”_

_Minos’s ephemeral mouth pressed into a line. “Would you rather it be someone else’s?”_

Nico frowned, touching a white line at his palm.

He hoped Ezra was the son of one of the blander gods. Hermes, or Demeter. No offense to them, but they were probably the safest options. Gods forbid his mother be Hecate or something. But Nico had no idea where to start as far as figuring it out. Octavian had given him insights so far as detecting the Greek/Roman split, but if Ezra refused to speak to him, he couldn’t determine shit.

So here he was crouching in a bush outside a chapel, hoping he’d get some convenient hearsay. This was just sad.

Of course, Ezra didn’t normally bring Nancy, so who knew. Maybe he’d open up a little tonight.

Nico peeked into the colored glass. Nancy was sitting in the front pew, swinging her legs back and forth. Ezra was running into the back clattering with all the extra supplies. “So while we’re alone, I was thinking we could—”

The sound of rumbling came closer until Ezra barged back in with a huge mass under a cloth. “Yeah, yeah, but can that wait? I have something to show you.” He pulled the cloth back. “Take a look at this!”

“Holy shit, dude.”

Under the cloth, the entire whiteboard was covered in writing.

“That right there is Camp Half-Blood. You wanna talk about Camp Half-Blood, please, Nan? I’m dying to talk about Camp Half-Blood with you all day, okay? So—” Ezra pointed at a map of the US, at the label “NEW YORK.” “Here’s New York City. Okay. Remember a couple years ago when all the statues in Manhattan moved to different locations and nobody could figure out why?”

“Uh, yeah? Abraham went off about judgement day for a whole week after that.”

“Yeah, well—”

* * *

 

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry about Ezra. He takes bad news pretty well,” Leo said.

* * *

 

Something rustled behind Nico.

He pulled out his knife and pointed it at—

An eleven year old girl. With... a gun.

Nico whispered, “Where did you get that?”

“Where did you get _that?_ ” Pam said, pointing at his knife. Pam, being deaf, did not whisper, and Ezra totally noticed that.

“Quiet!” Nico grabbed her and jumped into the bushes.

Ezra’s opening of the chapel doors made a painfully audible creak.

He stood there for a moment.

Nancy said, “Come on, there’s no one out there. You’re hearing things.”

Ezra went “hmm” and closed the doors again.

Nico took Pam a fair distance away from the chapel before opening up conversation again. “What in gods’ names are you doing with that?”

“It’s for protection,” Pam said, crossing one arm across her chest. Her right hand kept the barrel in the air.

“Let me see.”

Pam held it up and away from the both of them. “No!”

The gun was blocky, gray, and definitely not something he wanted to see right now. Knowing everything about swords but nothing about guns, that was all Nico could identify. “Where did you even get this?” Nico said after wrenching it out of her grip.

“Don’t point it at me.”

“So, this kid’s camp keeps rifles and whatever this is—”

“It’s a Colt, and don’t point it at me.”

“—In a random shed? What?”

Pam frowned in a way that looked familiar and Nico didn’t know why.

“Then where do they keep the guns?”

“I shouldn’t tell you.”

Nico sighed. “Look. You’re friends with Octavian, right?” Pam blinked blankly. It occurred to Nico that if Octavian was mute, she hadn’t seen his real name spoken aloud before. “The chicken guy. And he doesn’t like this place. He wants to escape.”

“...Right.”

“I’m trying to help him escape.”

That was bending the truth a bit. Nico was perfectly fine with leaving Octavian there to rot (he’d let him get shot out of a catapult once and he’d do it again in a heartbeat), but if it got him ally points, he’d lie his ass off. The kid seemed to be on almost everyone’s good side, so she probably overheard a lot.

Well. Not over _heard_ but—

Ah, you get the idea.

Pam looked thoughtful for a minute, and then disappeared into the trees. She didn’t tell him not to, so Nico followed.

She went out of the woods and into the main bulk of the camp. Nico knew the security cameras were fake, but Pam either didn’t or was aware of some other surveillance, because she kept ducking behind corners before finally unlocking a side door to the administrative building.

“Where did you get that key?” Nico whispered.

“I knit Nancy a fake beard and she stole it for me,” Pam said sagely.

Nico wasn’t sure whether she was kidding or not.

On they went through the hallway. Pam found a door with a keypad next to it. She slowly punched in the numbers—33, 19, 17. The way she raised her eyebrows at Nico implied some kind of deeper meaning, but he didn’t catch it.

Whatever. Pam opened the door.

* * *

 

No sooner did Leo say that things would be fine than Nico leapt into the clearing, saying “guns!”

“Nico?”

“Guns! They’ve got them stockpiled in the administration building.” Nico waved his arms frantically.

“Nico.”

“Pam showed me the safe. She has a key—and _gun training._ They’re teaching these kids how to shoot—”

“There’s a pine cone in your hair.”

Nico paused. He shook his head, and the pine cone that was tangled in his hair loosened itself until it hit the forest floor.

Octavian was speechless for more than a few moments before sticking his index finger and thumb out: _GUNS? I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT GUNS._

“Yeah, neither did I,” Leo said, “and I’ve been here for way longer. Are you sure?”

“I’m damn sure. I saw it myself.”

Nico explained.

 _WHY DOES PAM HAVE A KEY TO A GUN ROOM SHE NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT?_ Octavian asked.

Leo leaned his chin into his palm wearily. “Beats me. She _is_ a little girl, though; they like having secret double lives.”

That did not stop Octavian from looking dejected. His face looked like a moldy bowl of melted vanilla ice cream. Actually, scratch that description, it’s disgusting.

“So they call the gun training program ‘the hardware shed,’” Nico continued. “And Pam’s pretty sure you have to be a senior camper to be in it. They just put her in early because she isn’t affected by the sound of the gun going off. They’ve also been buying, like, a shitload of guns recently. More than usual.”

“No shit, dude, they didn’t even have _one_ gun when I went here. What changed?”

“I have no clue. Actually—yeah, I do,” Nico said, his eyes flicking off into the woods. “I’ve been doing some spying on Ezra—”

“How is he?”

“Not great, but that’s beside the point. You remember the Battle of Manhattan?”

Octavian raised his hand slowly, but Leo didn’t.

“Well, that—that’s right, you weren’t there. Long story short, every statue in New York is secretly a robot.”

“I knew it,” Leo said without hesitation. Octavian looked even more disappointed, if that were possible.

“Every statue is a robot,” Nico said, “and Percy activated them all to fight Kronos. They shut down after the battle ended and got frozen in the wrong positions. It was on the news the first couple days after, but then it faded into _oscurità_. You probably didn’t even remember it until I brought it up. The point _being_ that _Abraham noticed something was wrong._ ”

Octavian opened his storage chest and tried to go to sleep. Leo stared in disbelief.

“The gun purchases started right after the Battle of Manhattan, and they’ve been going ever since. A mortal should _not_ be able to react to something like that over such a long time frame. We need to consider that there’s really something to all this God-talk—Leo? Leo?”

“Huh?” Leo’s eyes were half-lidded. He must have started dozing off. He never did that. Must be some serious pain.

“Are you okay?”

“Not really. Long day,” he said softly.

“You feel like walking back to your cabin?”

Leo shook his head. “And explain myself to the counselors? No way. I’m just gonna sleep here.” He laid out on the log and pillowed his head with his hands. It was uncomfortable, but sleeping directly on the ground was the fast track to catching a cold.

He felt an odd gust of air, so he opened his eyes and was met with Nico’s face inches from his. Leo screamed. “Jesus!”

“Sorry,” Nico immediately said. “Um. I needed to ask you a question but I didn’t know if you were asleep?”

“Shoot.”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone with Octavian,” he said, his eyes shifting to the storage chest where two legs stuck out from under the wooden lid. “Can I stay here?”

Have one terrifying boy guard him from another terrifying boy? Alright. “Knock yourself out.”

Nico clambered onto the log and—

“Whoa. You sure you want to do that?” There was only one log outside, and not a lot of room to sleep in the coop. “Uh. I mean. I can sleep on the ground. ‘Cause I’m a _hugger_ , and you’ve got that touching thing—”

“It’s okay. I’ll sleep on the ground if you’re not comfortable. The last thing you need right now is to be sick.”

* * *

 

_Nico was cut somewhere in the stomach, and he was curled up in the fetal position to keep it from bleeding so much. He needed to keep moving, but he didn’t know how deep he’d been cut. If he stood up and his intestines fell out, that would be it for him._

_His blood was boiling on the ground where it fell. Red mist rose._

_The monster that had attacked him, thinking him sufficiently killed, left him there to bleed out. Even if he wasn’t stabbed, he would still want to lie there and never get back up. His femurs were disconnected from his hips. Could he even get up if he tried?_

_Two shadows fell over him._

Nico almost vomited when he woke up and felt hands on him. “Hhhhh—”

“Shh-shh-shh,” someone said. “I didn’t mean to touch you, I just didn’t know how else to wake you up.”

His eyes were pouring tears. His surroundings were cool, dull black. He spread out his arms as far as they would go, bracing his fingers against the ground, and they dug into the dark dirt easily. When he managed to suck in air it was clean and clear.

Fuck fuck fuck. It’s fine. It’s _fine._

Nico rolled his head into the support of Leo’s arm. His legs were splayed out on the grass. The stars twinkled behind Leo’s hair as he looked down on him. He was warm. Somehow, that was okay. It wasn’t like the scorching red heat. “You okay? I can—I can put you down.”

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” He let himself go limp.

They were side by side on the ground until morning.


	13. I Will Fear No Evil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything gets worse, somehow.

In the aftermath, Ezra and Nico were left waiting outside of Abraham’s office. Ezra was clutching a conversion pamphlet. “‘What is your name?’ Guess I already know your name...” he muttered.

“What are you doing?”

“Hoping for a breakthrough.” Ezra was pale and sweaty. He bounced his leg. His wet shoe made a squishing sound.

“Hoping, but not praying?”

He didn’t answer that. “Did you do it on purpose?”

“No.”

“I believe you.”

“Do you?”

“I _believe_ you. I just don’t think it’s a good sign. If all demigods do that when they’re baptized Leo would’ve done it too.”

“I never said Leo was a demigod.”

“I think when you’re not in the room. There’s a real darkness in your soul, pal.”

“Oh, so now I’m your pal.”

Ezra ignored that too. “‘Can you tell me a little about yourself?’”

Nico scoffed. “You won’t believe me.”

“Why are you being stubborn?”

“Because you’re being stubborn. Every time you bring up another religion, it’s to call it false and exalt your own. In your head the Babylonians and the Romans are pagan boogymen. Gandhi was a Hindu. Do you think he’s burning in Hell?”

“Gandhi had a child bride. Your argument’s invalid.”

“Oh my gods.” Nico put his head in his hands.

Ezra only leaned forward. “Humor me?”

“Fine.”

* * *

That morning:

Nico’s eyes shot open when he heard a boot hitting the grass.

He squeezed Leo’s hand, pinned halfway under them both (whoa, wait, when did they get so close? Never mind, there’s other things to worry about) and whispered, “Hey. Get up.”

“Hmm?” He blinked a couple times.

“Someone’s coming.”

That hit his on button quick. Both of them could run and hide at the drop of a hat, courtesy of years of experience. Even Nico, who’d been cheating for a few of those years, managed to get up in the tree before Jud tramped in.

Jud stood in the clearing around the chicken coop. He took a deep breath, deep enough that they could hear it rattle, and sighed.

Nico thought he heard the chickens cluck a little more nervously.

Jud scanned the clearing. He paused. Octavian’s legs poked out from beneath the wooden lid. Jud’s mouth split into the sharp, toothy shape of a child about to kick a dog. He opened the lid and hauled Octavian out by the collar. “You!”

Nico had half a mind to get out of there, but if they left now Jud might spot them and hurt Leo, so he held him tightly around the arm. Jud tossed Octavian onto the ground. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

Octavian frantically shook his head. Leo released one of the hands he was using to support himself and covered his eyes.

Jud’s hand wrapped around his throat. Octavian kicked uselessly. “I know it was you,” Jud said inches away from his nose. “I spent a goddamn month in the hospital shitting Contrac. You think you can scare me off?” If Octavian suddenly had the voice to answer, he still wouldn’t have. His eyes were rolling back. Jud let go, and he flopped onto the ground. “Get out of here, you fucking crackhead,” he said with a sharp kick to the ribs. Octavian scrambled away. “And don’t come back!”

Nico let out a soft wince. He wasn’t sure what was worse: watching yet another person get stomped into the ground, or realizing Jud had just cut off Leo’s major source of food.

* * *

 

“Where the hell _were_ you?” Nancy said, hands on her hips, when Leo and Nico got back to the cabins.

“Where the hell were _you?”_ Nico muttered softly.

Leo talked loudly so Nancy wouldn’t notice. “We took a walk in the woods and got lost, so we slept under the stars.”

She scoffed. “You know we’re, like, six hours outside Manhattan, right? What stars are there to sleep under?”

The normal morning routine time was cut in half by how late they were, so Leo just popped one of Ezra’s (who looked terrible—Jesus, Nico should’ve thought that plan through better) breath mints and hoped it was enough. Nico didn’t even have a toothbrush, so Ezra let him have two.

As Leo pulled a new shirt over his head, Ezra said, “Something something today.”

“What?” Leo said when he got his shirt on.

Ezra crossed his arms and harrumphed. Leo wondered how he seemed no different than he’d been all those years ago. His growling stomach brought him back to eggs. If Gilead’s walls were egg-shaped, did that make him a chicken? The difference between him and Ezra was that Leo had managed to crack the shell, climb out, and grow up. Ezra was miscarried. Or perhaps sat on a little too hard.

Wait, what was he talking about?

Leo realized he hadn’t so much as fixed anything in... what, almost a week? He was losing his damn mind. “Nico still isn’t baptized,” Ezra said again. “Abraham is going to do it today.”

Nico had finally changed out of the Ramones shirt—Ezra must have abducted his clothes too. His skin was ghostly in the bathroom’s flickering fluorescent light. “I don’t see the point,” he said while scowling at the offered camp shirt. Gilead green was not his color. Leo tried very hard to not stare at his nipples.

“He’s not going to ask, and neither will I. I don’t care if you’re a demigod, or a pagan, or a libertarian, everybody goes in the river.”

“Why would I get baptized in the name of a God that’s not going to affect me anyway?”

Ezra turned a little red. “Don’t patronize me. I know that a little water isn’t going to make any difference as far as faith goes. You’ve been here for three days and managed to dodge it.”

Nico’s eyebrows descended like a pair of black caterpillars falling off a tree. “Maybe he forgot.”

“Abraham doesn’t forget things,” Leo said. He paused. “I don’t reckon you brought emergency scuba gear with you?”

Nico looked unimpressed. “No.”

“I’m not joking. Abraham does ‘accidentally’ hold kids under a little too long.”

Ezra glared. “Don’t say those kinds of things.”

“I’ll say ‘em because they’re true,” Leo said, and before he finished that sentence Ezra had left the building. “I don’t think this was the right course of action,” he told Nico.

“It is in the long run.”

“How?” Leo said as he watched Ezra angrily kick a trash bin outside the door.

Nico held up one finger. “There’s three options right now—”

“AHH!”

The trash bin had tipped and hit Ezra in the balls.

“...There’s three options right now. Either _we_ tell Ezra all of the facts right now and let him ride out his faith crisis before anything critical happens...”

“Or we don’t tell him, and he doesn’t go off his rocker.”

“ _Or_ ,” Nico said, holding up three. “Or Ezra has a power he doesn’t know about and it goes off without him knowing he’s a demigod. That leaves Abraham free to call him a demon or whatever and manipulate him into doing what he wants. That’s the worst thing that could possibly happen, because we don’t know who his godly parent is. He could be related to the god of wood chippers for all we know.”

“If you wanna get technical, _I’m_ related—”

Nancy peeked her head in the doorway. “Yo, Valdez, you up for building something?”

Nico abruptly clutched the poison green shirt to his chest. “You’re in the men’s room!”

“I’m not _in_ it, I’m adjacent to it. There’s a difference,” Nancy scoffed. Nico remained vigilant. He’s from the same time period as Hazel, Leo reminded himself. Though the scandalized look didn’t visit Nico’s face as much as his sister’s, it was still kind of adorable.

Leo tried very hard not to smile and failed. “What do you need?”

“Rat traps.”

* * *

 

Abraham did not baptize Nico at the morning service. In fact, he wasn’t at the morning service. Apparently he was busy with something else that nobody knew about. But when five o’clock rolled around, Nico told Leo to take a breather, test his rat traps, and he would go to the evening service alone. Leo had been tossing lit nitroglycerin at leaves through the afternoon, and it was the happiest he’d been in days. Morale was vital, of course. It had absolutely nothing to do with how his laugh sounded. Nothing at all.

 _Will the circle be unbroken_  
_By and by, lord, by and by_  
_There’s a better home a-waiting_  
_In the sky, lord, in the sky_

Someone was a couple seconds late on the last “sky,” leaving a tenuous echo.

“Let me guess,” Nico said, trailing after Abraham, who was making for the back door. “Either I go willingly or he pushes me in.”

“He can and he will,” Nancy responded. Nico had been talking to himself and didn’t even realize she was back there. She was holding his wallet in her hand like a cherry tomato in a pair of salad tongs.

“Give that back!”

“What? I’m holding it for you.”

No sooner than Nico had snatched it back, a hand wrapped around his arm and dragged him into the river. The water was icy. The hand was burning up. He looked up expecting Abraham but was met with Ezra’s gauze mitten.

“What’re you doing here?”

“My job,” Ezra said coolly.

“I thought this was Abraham’s job.”

Instead of answering this question, Ezra looked up at Abraham for approval. The latter, standing at the edge of the blacktop above, only raised his eyebrows a bit. Ezra refocused his attention on Nico. “Just repeat after me.”

Nico faltered. Maybe Leo had a point about his plan.

He said everything Ezra told him to say before he was baptized... was it the first time? He doubted it. Though Nico had no recollection, he must’ve done this before relocating to America. That memory was inaccessible, drifted downstream with the rest of his early childhood in the Lethe. Did that count? Actually, by definition, none of his baptisms counted. He read somewhere that it was a symbol of cleansing, death, and rebirth. Buried and resurrected three times, but no cleaner than he was going in? Sorry, Jesus. You don’t happen to have a holy automated car wash, do you? Just pop in a quarter and I’ll walk through.

Spacing out was a bad idea, Nico realized as Ezra suddenly dunked him. Really bad.

He was held under for ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds.

Nico squirmed. Ezra would not let go. He thrashed. Ezra would still not let go.

Just as he was about to open his mouth, the shouting started, and he was let go.

He breached the water and gasped for air. It was so sharp and his ears rang so loud and the water was so cold he didn’t realize what all the fuss above him in the bright sun was about until he looked down.

The river ran red with blood.

* * *

 

Ninety-eight-percent nitric acid was surprisingly easy to find.

Leo didn’t normally work on the micro, and his hands were still being difficult, but he was persistent. One part nitric acid was added to three parts sulfuric acid in ice from the ice machine, the glycerin was dripped in with the eye dropper from some kid’s allergy medicine, mixed in with infirmary cotton balls and Epsom salt sulfate. He would figure how to pay Nancy later.

After ten cathartic minutes of blowing up sticks and lumps of clay in the woods, Nico asked him what was the point of all this.

“When I’m done with the rat traps, ideally they’ll look like strawberries on the outside,” Leo explained. To his credit, Nico was doing a good job of looking interested. “I’m not done with the shell yet, which’ll have a pressure trigger in it. Ideally, when the rat’s teeth breaches the shell, it’ll set off the plastic explosive on the inside. After this the shell should be easy.”

Nico hmmed. “How would you convincingly make each individual trap look like a strawberry?”

Leo hadn’t thought about it. “Uh...” Well, he couldn’t sit down and paint each trap in detail. He couldn’t even sit down and paint one without getting bored.

“I would think the smell is more important? Because, uh—look at a rat.” Nico pointed at his eyes. “Because its eyes are this big—” He made a fist. “And its nose is this big. That’s ninety percent more nose. And most of how humans decide whether something is good to eat depends on how it smells, right? I wouldn’t eat something that smells like nitroglycerin.”

“Dude, how would I make a bomb smell like strawberries? Besides, if a rat will eat strychnine, it’ll eat nitro.”

Nico informed him it was almost five by staring at the shadows of the trees and insisted that they split up and that was that.

Leo was walking back to the administration building with a few pressing questions about the dietary habits of rats and the chemical makeup of strawberries and whether Nico would in fact be okay when he tripped over Octavian.

Octavian had been spotted sleeping face down on the ground before. (He couldn’t have imagined that sentence a year ago.) Of course, that was before Leo knew he was Octavian and not some homeless guy. Now it was jarring to see him casually take a nap in the middle of the forest path.

“Dude,” Leo grumbled, putting a hand to his head. “Would it kill you to get out of the ro...”

Leo stopped. Something wet had smeared on his head. There was blood on his hand.

He reevaluated why Octavian was lying on the ground. Red soaked his shirt—the stab wound from Teresa must have reopened. It was also trickling from his mouth and on his pants. He was in the death-pose of a swatted fly.

Leo’s higher functions ticked over what had clearly happened, but it was drowned out by his deeper instincts crying “Blood! Blood! Blood!”

He grabbed Octavian by the collar and shook him. “Hey! _Hey!_ ”

Leo was met with a punch in the stomach. Not a great punch, but his ribs were already banged up. He yelped and dropped Octavian, who scooted into the bushes like a scared animal and, with a loud “sploosh,” fell in the river.

The New Jordan River was brutally cold even in the summer, deep and wide enough for submersion baptism, but never fast. It was slow and steady as a cow. Leo was not worried that Octavian would be washed away. He clambered over the bushes and looked down the steep ledge over the river.

The water was waist-high. Leo’s waist, anyway. The figure was invalid for Octavian, who, aside from being roughly a foot taller, was kneeling. Scrubbing at his shirt, scrubbing—well, anything he could feasibly reach.

Leo opened his mouth to talk down, then reconsidered when he realized what he’d have to say. He went into the river. Octavian growled. A retread of their earlier meeting. But Octavian didn’t seem like a rabid dog anymore. He seemed like a sad, scared little man who’d lost his battle, and lost hard.

Leo raised his hands in a pacifying gesture. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to know if you’re okay.”

Octavian just screwed up his face and clutched his side.

“It reopened.”

He nodded.

“You need to go to the infirmary.”

He finally signed something, haltingly. _SMALL. CUT. LEAVE. ME. ALONE._

Leo stared at the steep face of the ledge before asking his final question. “Did Jud do this?”

_TERESA DID._

“That’s not what I meant.”

Silence. The blood streaked downstream, to the baptism site.

* * *

 

Later:

“My father is Hades, and—”

“Oh! Like the Hercules movie?”

“No. They let you watch that?”

“I looked it up on Wikipedia. I was just trying to say something nice.”

“Did you think my feelings would be hurt if you didn’t?”

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Sorry.”

“So my father—”

“Sorry.”

“...So my father is Hades, and he’s the god of the Underworld. He’s one of the three most powerful Greek gods, so he would be called one of the most important gods, if anyone were willing to mention him, which nobody is. I’m... almost ninety, actually. Wow.”

“You must have a great moisturizer, then.”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s your mom?”

“Uh, I just live at camp.”

“So, you don’t, like, go anywhere during the school year...”

“I go to school online. Sometimes I visit my father.”

“...In the Underworld.”

“Yes.”

“Like, Greek hell? You go to Greek hell for the holidays?”

“Not necessarily hell. You’ve got... heaven, sort of, hell, sort of. Super heaven, super hell. Reincarnation. Limbo. It’s a diverse industry.”

“And this is a place you can go to?”

“If you’re me, because I’m a son of Hades. Or if you’re Percy. But he’s insane, so don’t follow his example. Next question.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a professional brooder. People give me money to look sad. ...Okay, I kill monsters. Like the thing that was in Teresa.”

“I thought that was a demon.”

“Little of both. I also do errands for my father. Gods tell me to do their dirty work sometimes. Me more frequently than most, because—”

“In person?”

“Hm?”

“The gods. Do you just hear voices, or...”

“I’ve spoken to Apollo in the flesh. Very recently.”

“What are they like?”

“...Eh. Next question.”

“Um... what do you think you’ll be doing in ten years?”

“Ten years? I wouldn’t surv—never mind. Pass.”

“What?”

“Pass. I pass on that question. Ask another.”

“What? Why won’t you tell me?”

“You wouldn’t like the answer.”

“So now you care about what answers I will and won’t like?”

“You needed to know that one, or you would get hurt—”

“Or I would hurt Leo.”

“...”

“I see the way you two look at each other.”

“Great, great, you’re a homophobe, too?”

“No! I just don’t believe in your lifestyle.”

“My _lifestyle?_ ”

“...”

“You want to know why I told you you’re a demigod?”

“Yes.”

“You _really_ want to know?”

“Yes!”

“Because you’re an asshole, Ezra.”

“What?”

“You’re an asshole! You live in a militaristic cult compound that glorifies beating the shit out of orphans for... ‘sin’ or whatever, and you stand by. If you didn’t _know_ it was wrong, I would be upset, yeah, but I would understand. What I don’t understand is that you know that the lies, and the abuse, and the brainwashing is wrong. You know it’s wrong, but you let it happen anyway.”

“...”

“...”

“It’s my choice to make. It shouldn’t matter to you.”

“It’s going to matter to your future self. What if you’re twenty years down the road and still whoring yourself out to God? The Holy Spirit can’t come down and tell you what to do. People are getting hurt. People might _die_ because you’re terrified of disappointing a guy who says he hears an invisible man in the sky whispering to him?”

“...”

“Know where that’ll leave you? One day you’ll think maybe, just maybe, Abraham’s wrong. Maybe you won’t have to hurt anyone. But you’ve already invested so much in this, and nobody will look at you right because of the things you’ve done.”

“...”

“Where can you go? Where will you belong when you can no longer be used?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, but for how long? I am slogging through college applications, scholarship applications, honors college applications, etc. But I noticed the next chapter I had lined up was #13 and I was like !!! that's the Nico number! Good thing I'm in kind of a funk. Bad for me, but good for writing what's essentially a Nico monologue.
> 
> Also. a revelation about Jud and why anyone felt it necessary to feed him a dead rat.
> 
> I actually started writing this one with Nico, soaking wet from the (completely ordinary) baptism stumbling upon Jud in the midst of the act, and proceeding to beat the crud out of him. But that was too fast an escalation. So I backtracked to the baptism. Incidentally, I'm reading The Poisonwood Bible in AP Lit, specifically a passage where the villagers upstream are polluting their local river so badly the villagers downstream are getting dysentry from drinking the water. Then the scene with the blood just clicked.
> 
> Ezra tries to clean Nico of his sins, but upstream, someone else is trying to wash off the sins of the cleansers.
> 
> Also I guess that's a connection to the plagues of egypt. But that wasn't my intention here
> 
> A note about gandhi. Ezra is right, sort of. gandhi did marry a 14 yr old girl... but gandhi was 13 at the time
> 
> uwu. i know not much happened in this one, but holla if u still readin.


	14. Like a Bird in a Cage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> baby chapter. baby. in proportion to an Extra Big Epistles next time. and a paradigm shift.
> 
> IMPORTANT EDIT: changed the end.

Leo set a few pages of blueprints on Abraham’s desk. Abraham was typing something when he looked up. “What’s this?”

“Blueprints for rat traps.”

Abraham sifted through the pages and looked over them. “This is meant to explode.”

“It’s a controlled explosion, but yeah. I don’t do things in halves.”

Abraham hmmed. “This looks good. Consider yourself dismissed from tonight’s session.”

Leo might’ve noticed that Abraham seemed distracted if he weren’t distracted too. Though he couldn’t see it, here’s what was on Abraham’s computer.

 

_Camp Gilead_

_Crafting God’s mouthpieces_

 

_To whom it may concern,_

_For undisclosed reasons, we have been forced to put Mr. di Angelo in a 24 hour in-camp suspension. He will be evaluated to determine whether he can remain in Camp Gilead._

_Sincerely,_

 

_Father Abraham Hill_

_Camp Gilead Youth Pastor_

* * *

Nico sometimes pressed his fingers against the walls. They felt fuzzy. But they couldn’t be fuzzy. They were concrete.

He ran his hand along the surface and found gouged lines.

Nico briefly wondered what they were before realizing and pulling his hand away.

* * *

Nancy looked disappointed but not all that surprised when Leo told her. She just said, “Yeah, that figures,” and went back to her macaroni Jesus portrait.

“What? What do you mean, ‘that figures?’” Leo demanded. “There’s a freakin’ sex offender running around and that just ‘figures?’”

“Yeah, it figures. Now keep it down,” she hissed. “You’re scaring the kids.”

“They’re going to be a lot worse than scared if we don’t do something.”

Nancy’s face contorted like a blob of stretched bread dough. “Listen, asshole. I’ve been here since I was twelve. I’ve got a week until I turn eighteen, and then I’m outta here. I’m sure Daddy Abe is just _itching_ to find a reason to disappear me, just like your moody little boyfriend. There’s no ‘we’ in this conversation.”

Leo paused. “My—my what?”

“You know, that guy that looks like a Tim Burton extra.”

“Nico? Did something happen to him?”

* * *

Eventually somebody turned up to slide some food through the slot in the door. Nico caught a white flash of gauze. “If something you said put me in here, at least tell me so.”

The room was quiet for a moment. Then the slot opened again. “I didn’t say anything,” Ezra whispered.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then why am I in here?”

“He refuses to exorcise you.”

“Why?”

Silence.

* * *

Leo found Ezra walking out of the bathroom, shaking his hands dry. “The air drier’s broken again,” he said.

“What did you do?”

“What?”

“Why is Nico in the hole?”

“Didn’t anyone tell you? The river turned into blood when he was baptized.”

“Blood? But that was Octavian.”

“Who’s Octavian?”

“I—ugh, nevermind. Just get him out of there.”

“Whoa, don’t get too crazy, Leo!” Ezra said. He was trying to use the tone he used with the little kids—like he was the host of Blue’s Clues or something. His eyes darted anxiously. “Abraham has the keys to the in-camp suspension room. I can’t just _ask_ for them.”

“Try.”

The corners of Ezra’s smile drew tight. “Excuse me?”

“For once in your life, try. Try to help someone other than yourself.”

* * *

Nico didn’t have much to do except spin the little skull on his ring and measure his cell. It was ten by ten by ten. Nice proportions. _Not_ as small as it could be. Very dark.

He tried to shadow travel but the shadow didn’t feel right. It wasn’t an absence of things, as shadows should be. When he tried to enter it was viscous, and smelled. It smelled like rotting eggs.

Nico, for lack of wanting anything to do with the shadow, laid on the mattress on the floor and tried to memorize the little bumps and grooves in the skull until he could fall asleep, and plan his escape.

* * *

“I hate him,” Leo said at dinner. “I hate him.”

Once again, the peanut gallery was seated at the “do not feed” table. Nancy was again at his left, and Pam was again at his right. They were playing Uno.

“Who are we hating, again?” Nancy said. “Your turn.”

“I don’t know. Abraham. Jud. Ezra. Everyone’s an asshole.”

“It’s still your turn.”

“Fine.” Leo threw down a red 1.

“Abraham and Jud, I get, but why’s Ezra an asshole? He seems alright to me.”

“He’s stupid. He hurts everyone that tries to help him and even when he has a guilty conscience, he always takes the path of least resistance.”

“Yeah, but it’s the thought that counts, right?”

Leo wrinkled his nose. “When did you start camp?”

“Like, 2006.”

“Then you don’t know what he did.”

Pam put down a red 9.

“Pam’s quiet today,” Nancy said. “How much does she know about the whole Jud thing?”

“So now you care?”

“I’ve always cared. I just don’t want to get in trouble.”

“Just like Ezra,” Leo muttered. He tapped Pam on the shoulder and tentatively struck out in sign language. _ARE YOU OKAY?_

_YEAH. I’M TRYING TO FIND OCTAVIAN ANOTHER PLACE TO SLEEP._

_AND?_ Leo signed.

_THE STAFF MIGHT JUST KICK HIM OUT OF CAMP._

A wild card went in the stack.

* * *

Nico’s dreams were stiff at best. He was a very lucid dreamer, yes, but a lifetime of trauma had made it difficult to work with his own dreams. Other dreams were in short supply. Nobody in Camp Gilead was asleep yet and… well, that was it. It was like the world had shrunk to a microcosm.

He kept his eyes closed as heat solidified around him. _Don’t lose your cool. It’s fine. You’re in control._

But he had lost control many, many times before. He tried not to remind himself of this as he took hold of the existing dream and crushed it into a hot red singularity.

He couldn’t get rid of it entirely. All he could do was put it away.

Okay. Let’s start fresh.

Nico made a map.

* * *

Lacking a real meeting place after the appropriation of the chicken coop, Leo had to lead Nancy behind the staff building.

“Are you sure he didn’t want it?” Nancy said. She was slower than usual, and limped a bit.

Leo was horrified. “What kind of question is that?”

“I’m just saying. We don’t know what he was doing in that chicken coop. That’s what junkies _do_ , they don’t have money, so they bend over and—”

“What is _wrong_ with you? Just because Oc—Chicken Man’s homeless doesn’t mean he’s a drug addict. Besides, that would imply Jud has heroin on him, and while he’s got a lot of other vices, I don’t think that’s one of them.”

Nancy grumbled nonetheless.

They found Octavian huddled behind the dumpster in a new hoodie. Any anger in him must’ve burned out; all he did was stare vacantly into the horizon. “Could you stand over there for a minute?” Leo said to Nancy, who shrugged and turned away.

Leo crouched down and whispered: “Hey, so Nancy doesn’t know shit about the situation. All she knows is you’re getting kicked out, and that means you can get us help. Okay?”

Octavian continued to stare.

“Dude?”

A bead of saliva slid from the corner of his mouth.

“Something’s wrong,” he shouted to Nancy. “Hey. Hey! Help me get his legs!”

Leo pushed him onto his side. “What’s wrong with him?” Nancy cried.

“I think he’s having a seizure.” Octavian’s pupils were dilated to the size of quarters. His teeth began to chatter and something green spilled out of his mouth.

Green like leaves.

* * *

Wait.

Something was wrong.

Nico broke from his planning and opened his eyes. Someone was here with him.

A figure sat in the corner. He couldn’t make out much. Nico approached. “Hey. How did you get in here?”

Silence.

“Are you okay?”

Nico reached out. His hand passed through with no resistance, as if he were dipping it in an icy lake.

“Oh.”

His eyes adjusted to the syrupy darkness. A ghost sat cross legged in front of him, not looking at anything in particular through bleach-red hair. Nico withdrew his hand. She was young.

The ghost worked her mouth hesitantly, like it had been a long time since she’d last spoken. “Libation.” The word was like recirculated air. “Libation.”

Nico had no food, but nonetheless he drew the knife from his ankle and cut a jagged line on his palm. The ghost cupped her hands under the wound and drank.

“Thank you.” She wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her Camp Gilead sweatshirt and looked at him with newly comprehending eyes. He could see the texture of the wall through her body. “You’re new.”

“Yeah.”

“And you can see me.”

“I can.”

She sniffed. “That doesn’t bode well. What year is it?”

“2012.”

“Oh. Does Ezra still work here?”

“Yeah, he does.” This seemed like a ghost on a mission. Only the dead with unfinished business could remain so focused for so long.

The ghost sighed. “Can’t make a horse drink, I guess. How are the others? Janet? Leo? Mike?”

“I don’t—I haven’t met a Janet or a Mike, but I know Leo.”

“Is he well? I haven’t seen him in… two years, I believe.”

“Um… he left Gilead and went to live where I live,” he said slowly. “He was happy.”

Her brow furrowed. “But our father found him.”

“He did.” He paused. “Who are you?”

She shook her head. The strands of her hair dissolved into vapor at the ends. “It doesn’t matter. If it didn’t matter then, it doesn’t matter now.”

“Then why are you here?”

The ghost placed a hand on Nico’s shoulder, and it was like an avalanche had passed through his body. “Can you tell Leo that leaving alone was the right decision? If he took Ezra, he would’ve alerted our father. I would have, too, if he took me.”

Nico swallowed. “You know Ezra too. Do you have a message for him?”

The ghost smiled.

"Don't be afraid."

Nico woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no write up. keyboard still broken. will get new one around crimmas. then epistles iii will drop. peace


	15. Epistles III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> >:)

(On back page of But… You’re A Gaul.)

TRAVELLING, DAY 2

I SHOULD GET SOME HAND SANITIZER. WHAT DI ANGELO WROTE ON MY FOREHEAD IS NOT PROVING CONDUCIVE TO HITCHHIKING.

I DID THE MATH. I NEED ONE BOTTLE OF WATER PER DAY MINIMUM IF I WANT TO KEEP WALKING WITHOUT PASSING OUT, BUT AT THE PRICE IT’S AT, I’M GOING TO RUN OUT OF MONEY BEFORE I GET TO LONG ISLAND. I COULD BUY IN BULK, BUT HOW THE HELL WOULD I DRAG THAT AROUND?

UNRELATED NOTE: THERE’S A STRANGE GLUT OF TEENAGE GIRLS IN CEDAR GROVE? IS THERE EVEN A SCHOOL HE

(Pen streaks off paper mid-letter.)

* * *

 (Partial transcript of a counselor meeting at Camp Half-Blood.)

 **WS:** ...And finally, the Grey Sisters are offering a discount on cross-country rides from New York to LA. If you don’t get motion sickness easily, that’s an option for those wanting to lay low until this blows over. Any questions? Piper.

 **PM:** Where are Percy and Annabeth? They’re usually here.

 **WS:** Annabeth has been… in an accident.

_Murmuring._

**WS:** We’re investigating the circumstances. She’s going to be okay, but Percy’s elected to stay at the hospital until we can get her back into camp. Any other questions? Katie?

 **KG:** Yeah, what’s she doing here?

_Katie Gardner points at Hazel._

**KG:** She’s not even Greek, let alone a counselor.

 **WS:** In Nico’s absence, Hazel is serving as the counselor of Cabin 13. Anyone else? Thalia.

 **TG:** The Hunters of Artemis have scouts at the village near Camp Gilead. We’ve spotted a suspicious person coming this way.

 **WS:** Suspicious how?

 **TG:** Shaggy looking, seems to be mute. We flagged him because he’s wearing a Camp Gilead sweatshirt.

 **WS:** Well, bad fashion choices are no cause for panic.

_Nervous laughter._

**TG:** Yeah, but when I say he’s coming this way, he’s coming _this_ way. To Camp Half-Blood. He says he has a message from Leo Valdez.

_Uproar._

* * *

(Blackboard in the Camp Gilead rec room.)

I will not pull pranks.

(Repeats 99 times.)

* * *

(Partial transcript of a community radio broadcast from 2009.)

 **Oswald:** Good morning everybody! It’s your boy, your daily pick-me-up, Julius Oswald. Today’s high is about 75, not a cloud in sight, an absolutely beautiful day. As usual you can tune into 1070 to hear a real forecast, since they have their own Doppler and it should be about right for New Rome. We’re fixing ours, but we just now scraped the harpy off it, so it’s a work in progress.

 **Oswald:** We’re going to take a quick break, and when we come back, I’ll have Jason Grace in the studio to talk about Mount Othrys and how that’s going. You are listening to community radio, one-oh-four, SPQR.

 _♫ I spread my wings and I learn how to fly ♪_ _  
_ _♪ The sun melts the wax and I fall from the sky ♫_

 **Oswald:** ...And one problem that a lot of people are talking about is, we don’t know where Saturn’s followers are _coming_ from.

 **Grace:** Could you elaborate?

 **Oswald:** Uh, yeah. If you look at these numbers, we’ve counted about eighty different demigods going in and out of Mount Othrys. However, we can only identify eleven Roman citizens among them.

 **Grace:** Well, there’s a lot of demigods that never came to Camp Jupiter. If there’s a communications breakdown, they have no way of knowing—until Saturn’s army sniffs them out. Luke Castellan likes preying on the most vulnerable kids.

 **Oswald:** That’s another thing. It’s been reported that Castellan’s showing up in New Rome for recruitment purposes. Those who turned him down have been giving some interesting eyewitness accounts. His armor and fighting style isn’t consistent with Roman standards.

 **Grace:** Yes, but—

 **Oswald:** Aside from that, observed dissidents have displayed odd patterns, such as similar beaded necklaces, different language habits, nearly no reaction to the presence of Romans—

 **Grace:** If I’m not mistaken, an “interview” involves _two_ people talking?

 **Oswald:** Right, sorry. Got carried away with myself.

 **Grace:** In all honesty, Julius, we don’t have many answers. The legion’s focus right now is on storming the mountain. If there are answers, we’ll find them after the war. Now, I’m assuming all this noise about the statistics is coming from the Sweetwater papers?

 **Oswald:** Yes.

 **Grace:** It’s solid research—kind of over my head, though. I got lost after the… the split personality part.

 **Oswald:** Conjunctive pantheon hypothesis.

 **Grace:** Yeah. I’m not sure how much of that I believe. If Greek and Roman gods were interchangeable, we might be speaking Greek right now, right?

 **Oswald:** Speaking of that, I’ve got another question for you.

 **Grace:** Okay? Shoot.

 **Oswald:** You were overheard speaking to Praetor Reyna recently, about an encounter with the god Apollo. Apollo claimed that this week was the first time you’d spoken face-to-face, but you recalled meeting him when you were twelve, correct?

 **Grace:** I’m sorry, who overheard this?

 **Oswald:** Ah, a little bird told me. So you met Apollo—

 **Grace:** I need to leave.

 **Oswald:** Or somebody who looked like him, who told you that he would give his blessing—

 **Grace:** It’s—that’s classified legion information. Sorry.

 **Oswald:** If you—Jason! Hey!

 **Oswald:** …

 **Oswald:** Well, uh. That didn’t go as planned. Jason had another 45 minutes scheduled, so I don’t really have anything. Should I just play music until Tacitus gets to the studio? ...No, that sounds lazy. Uh, let me see here...

 **Oswald:** Found a newspaper. I reckon you could tune in to 1070 to get news, but there’s always the local perspective to consider. Like…

 **Oswald:** Nevermind. I don’t care. My mother died yesterday. I didn’t even want to come to work, but Tacitus was all, “no, don’t, you’re the voice of New Rome community radio.” Fuck off, Tacitus, you just don’t want to get your sorry ass out of bed before noon.

 **Oswald:** The scans were wrong—the tumor was compressing a major blood vessel and when they took it out, she bled to death. She could’ve had one more year with her family, but of course my runt brother just couldn’t accept that.

 **Oswald:** I took that stupid sailboat painting off the wall.

 **Oswald:** So, yeah, here’s the news, courtesy of the late Molly Sweetwater. Greeks are the tip of the iceberg, and Jason Grace has put us all on the goddamn Titanic.

 **Oswald:** I’m taking the day off to plan the funeral. Community radio, one-oh-four, SPQR.

 _♫ I don’t know but I been told (I don’t know but I been told) ♪_ _  
_ _♪ Hyperborean pussy is mighty cold (Hyperborean pussy is mighty cold) ♫_

* * *

(Printout from Google Maps folded and placed between pages of But… You’re a Gaul: walking route from Warwick to unnamed point in Long Island. Also, a red envelope emblazoned with the image of a child holding a scroll. The envelope has $23.77 inside. A speech bubble is drawn above the child’s head.)

Good luck :)

* * *

(Found in Nancy Bobofit’s pocket.)

Hallelujah, for I hath got laid!

I guess?

I mean, _I_ had fun. I’ve never did anything of the ilk before but I did my best. I didn’t think it was bad enough to warrant a barfing fit.

Ezra was sorta doubled over in the bathroom, which doesn’t have windows, so it was okay to turn the light on. I couldn’t see it earlier because it was dark, but the bandages around his hand were bloody. I told him to go get it looked at but he said he was fine, so I guess he’s fine.

That bein said nobody told me love could be so messy. I took a pill before doin it so I’m okay anyway but it was still kinda gross, even before I remembered Ezra’s hand’s fucked up. Bleh

* * *

(Excerpt from journal Bible.)

Kyrie eleison, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa peccavi.

I used to study Catholic prayers in private. I say “in private” because Abraham finds Catholicism offensive. The elaborateness of the rituals borders on pagan, and frankly, the chanting just doesn’t look good if taken out of context. But I liked the feel of it, how ancient it sounds compared to King James’s middling thees and thous, so I googled the prayers in the staff room and cleared my internet history immediately afterward. Soon I didn’t even need to look them up—I’d absorbed enough words that I could mix and match easily. It felt like a sin. I had an entire language in my head that no one knew about.

Well, maybe it’s leaked through into life. In the field of anatomy I can get away with it. Did you know that anatomical terms have Latin roots and clinical terms have Greek roots? Ma Nancy slipped and cut her leg on the rocks at the riverbank once. I put pressure on it and explained the blood vessels until Chicken Man came back with a first aid kid, and by then the bleeding had almost stopped.

Leo told me to get Nico out of the psych hold. I didn’t need to ask him why—they don’t look at each other like they’re acquaintances. I’m familiar with that. A few years ago I was following a girl around like a hummingbird following a guy with a red hat. It was her hair that appealed to me, how bright it was. I was never brave enough to initiate anything, and besides, what’s the point of a relationship in a place of no privacy?

I figure they’re both damned anyway, and I’m good as damned. I might as well enable.

I weaseled Nico out of trouble, putting in a good word for him insofar as the 24-hour psych hold was concerned. I told him to say it was a prank. I emptied a red kool-aid pouch for him, put it through the slot, told him to slip it in his pocket.

“Why do you want me here?” he asked me.

The same reason I obsessed over Latin. I want to know more.

I went to the infirmary to pick up more painkillers for my hand. Chicken Man was lying on one of the cots. God help him. I can’t make heads or tails of the man, but I had my sympathies since he was being sacked.

While I was waiting, Chicken Man tapped me on the shoulder. He’s been unusually lucid in the past week—well, not lucid, since I can’t comprehend his actions for the life of me. But the events of the week have been a reminder that yes, he does have a brain, and it’s not just a blob of chicken feathers in his skull.

My understanding of sign language is crude and he knows this. “What do you need?”

He took my hand—the bandaged one.

He signed slowly. I — KNOW. I — HAVE — ALWAYS — KNOWN.

He rolled down the sleeve of his sweatshirt and showed me his tattoo. Once I spotted a it in the shower, it was of a barcode or somesuch, and a harp. I’d always assumed it was a gang symbol. He tapped it meaningfully.

I AM — LIKE — YOU.

I felt nauseous.

“No. I’m not—I’m not like you, okay?”

He shook his head. YOU — HEAL. He traced a line down from his mid-thigh to his shin. Roughly where Nancy was cut.

“It was a small cut! I just put pressure on it.”

He denied again. YOU — SPEAK — OLD — SPEECH. YOU — HEAL. YOU — ARE — he spelled — ROMAN.

I have read about the classical mythologies—the rape of Persephone and the death of Daphne. I remember the sermons of my childhood, when we were told how the Jews, and later, the Christ were put to death for not worshipping the emperor as a deity. Abraham—he lit a match, and he said, who will put their fingers in the fire? I’ll give you a dollar if you put your fingers in the fire for just one minute!

One minute in the fire does not compare to all the good Christians who were lit ablaze on Nero’s lawn. Nero and Hades and Jupiter are loose in the world, raping and killing with impunity.

I swung with my wounded hand, but I didn’t feel anything until after someone started screaming at me to stop, what’s wrong with you?! I turned and it was the nurse, and Leo. Chicken Man was laughing.

I left. It wasn’t until much later that I realized I never got the painkillers.

Nancy met me in the chapel last night. She was wearing a backless dress, and I said, “Where did you get that?”

She told me she stole it. I started taking off my shirt.

There were five minutes of noises like an old man was eating a bowl of chili somewhere in this pitch black room with us, I was picturing red hair, and then Nancy was by the window smoking a cigarette and it was over.

“Was it good?” she said, not looking at me. It sounded more reflective than quizzical, like she was asking herself the question too.

I didn’t answer anyway. I went to the bathroom and threw up.

(Highlighted: Matthew 5:30.)

* * *

(Letter between pages of But… You’re a Gaul.)

Hi guys!

This is Leo Valdez and Nico di Angelo. We’re still alive. The guy holding this letter is Octavian. That Octavian. The one that’s dead. Trust me, give him a shave and you’ll recognize him.

Jokes aside, that is not the most fucked up thing about this situation.

(Letter continues for three pages.)

* * *

(In a massive unprocessed stack of standard dream reports.)

FORM 10-M — STANDARD DREAM REPORT

LEGIONNAIRE: Centurion Michael Kahale

ESTIMATED RECALL: 100%

LIKELIHOOD OF RELEVANT INFORMATION: High

DESCRIPTION: I’ve had some strange nightmares over the past year, but I largely dismissed them as PTSD until now. Most people feel guilty after launching someone from an onager, especially a long-time partner friend coworker.

For a few months after the incident I had dreams about it, mostly involving Octavian screaming and running around on fire. Those were gruesome, but they’re not the dreams I’m reporting.

Last night the person I killed came to me. Not like those random trauma dreams with dead relatives in them. This wasn’t old brain static. This was real.

Octavian brought me to a hill. On that hill, there was a crucifix. Nobody was using it. It was lying on the ground, yet to be hoisted up. I had this feeling that it wasn’t for either of us.

This was not how he looked when he died—it wasn’t even how he looked in the hours before he died. He was an exact replica of himself after we sacked Mount Othrys, when we were driving up and down the mountain in a landscaping truck carrying the injured that couldn’t fit in the ambulances. Clear eyes, gold armor covered with arterial spray.

He looked up at me. You think in moments like these, you’ll break down, because someone you lost is right in front of you, and who hasn’t thought about moments like these? You think you’ll weep with joy, and you’ll reunite, and everything will be okay. You’ll be forgiven.

I looked at Octavian Oswald and it was pure terror.

He greeted me so calmly, like he wasn’t dead and appearing to me in a vision. It was like being shot in the chest. The tone was right, but the—I don’t know, the intent was missing. His mouth didn’t match to the words.

When I finally pulled it together enough to listen, he was still talking. He said, I picked you for a reason. I could’ve told anyone else these three things — Percy Jackson, Jason Grace, either of the praetors — but I chose you because this face would make an impression on you specifically, Mikey. So listen carefully.

Gods, he called me Mikey.

He held up one finger, and told me, you’re not in the proper place. I asked him, what does that mean? Me specifically? The Romans? Humankind? He ignored me.

He kept going, holding up a second finger. He said, your gods are absolutely right, and they are disastrously wrong. The term “your” was unnerving. I asked him about that too, but before it was even out my mouth I knew he wasn’t going to listen.

The third finger, the final revelation. The thing wearing my dead boyfriend told me to listen carefully to this one, and if I plug only one thing into those standard dream reports, let it it be this.

The primary reason for Camp Gilead’s existence is love.

Then I fell out of my bunk.

* * *

(Transcript of undated CCTV footage from parking garage.)

10:17

[ _Reyna and Jason enter frame, approaching a green car. Reyna is holding keys. A large black poodle stands motionless in the foreground. They do not acknowledge it._ ]

 **JASON:** Is that it?

 **REYNA:** It has to be. It’s the only green car in the garage.

[ _Reyna unlocks the car._ ]

 **REYNA:** The key fits...

[ _She opens the door. An Elmo doll falls out of the car._ ]

 **ELMO DOLL:** Stop tickling Elmo!

 **JASON:** [ _Laughing._ ] Oh, gods. This is horrible.

 **REYNA:** It could be worse. He could be using actual livers.

 **JASON:** Thank Jupiter for small mercies.

[ _Irrelevant footage expunged. Jason and Reyna finish removing boxes of stuffed animals from the car. The black poodle remains motionless. They ignore it. Reyna holds a large box in her hand and gives the keys to Jason._ ]

 **REYNA:** I think this is the last of it. Lock the car. My hands are full.

 **JASON:** Sure.

[ _Jason locks the car. He turns to leave. The poodle blocks him. It has moved without walking. Jason addresses the poodle._ ]

 **JASON:** Oh!

[ _The poodle is motionless._ ]

 **JASON:** I’m sorry.

[ _Silence._ ]

 **JASON:** What do you mean?

[ _Silence._ ]

 **JASON:** That’s impossible.

[ _Silence._ ]

 **JASON:** Then what can I do?

[ _Silence._ ]

 **JASON:** What kind of price?

[ _Jason nods._ ]

 **JASON:** I… I see.

[ _A knife appears in Jason’s hand. Footage cuts out for seven minutes._ _When footage is restored Jason is bleeding from the hand. The poodle is gone. Reyna enters frame._ ]

 **REYNA:** Jason, hurry up. We have other things to do.

[ _Silence._ ]

 **REYNA:** Jason?

* * *

(Continued transcript of a counselor meeting at Camp Half-Blood.)

_Will Solace has turned on the faucet in the janitor’s closet. A phone dialing sound emanates from the stream. Percy and Annabeth connect._

**PJ:** Hey, guys. What’s going on?

 **AC:** Hey.

_Someone shouts “woo-hoo!”_

**WS:** Thalia has some interesting news. Thalia, can you, uh, stand in the closet, they can’t see you if you don’t.

_Will comes out of the closet while Thalia enters. The counselors make indistinct jokes._

**TG:** I think we’ve made contact with Leo.

 **AC:** What? How?

 **TG:** We’re not sure, but it looks like he sent a messenger out of Camp Gilead. We shook him down. He knows their full names and says they’re alive, but he won’t give us proof until we bring him to Camp Half-Blood.

 **PJ:** But you’re not. You think he’s a spy, don’t you?

 **TG:** We can’t be too sure. We’re getting a lot of mixed signals from him. He’s wearing a Camp Gilead shirt, but has a SPQR tattoo.

_Murmuring. Grover Underwood enters holding a pizza._

**AC:** The SPQR is either fake or real, and neither option is good. If it’s fake, then they know who the Romans are. If it’s real…

 **HL:** He can’t be one of ours. If we put a spy in that camp, we would’ve told you.

 **AC:** Then you’ve got somebody unaccounted for.

 **GU:** Um, hi. Sorry, did someone order pizza?

_Collective muttering along the lines of “I didn’t” and “ooh, pizza.”_

**WS:** What kind of pizza?

_Grover sniffs._

**GU:** It smells like strawberries.

_The counselors are outraged._

**AC:** Hey! Quiet! Grover, please put that away. I’m trying to argue about something important, not what belongs on pizza and what doesn’t.

 **WS:** I mean, I’ll eat it.

_Exclamations of abject disgust as Will takes the pizza._

**WS:** What? It’s just food, it’s not like it’ll kill me.

 **PJ:** Thalia, can you describe what the tattoo looked like?

 **TG:** I didn’t get a good look at it, but there was a harp. We’re holding the guy in a camp in New Jersey. I can get a line from—

_The room explodes._

* * *

(A piece of loose notebook paper with a drawing of Leo Valdez on it. A heart is hastily smudged out with a bad eraser.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry crisis >:D


	16. What Shall We Say Then?

“What do you mean, ‘let him go?’”

“We’ve come across something better. Besides, he’s been sabotaged. A filthy mute man does not an impressive display of power make.”

“But what if the other two try something?”

“It’s handled, trust me. Now let me go, I have a hospital to visit.”

* * *

The Senate converged, sleepwalking. Jason himself was too tired to notice anything was wrong until Frank walked into a marble pillar. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, patting the pillar.

“Hey, Frank!” Jason called across the building.

A few Romans gave him blank-eyed stares. Frank himself glanced in the wrong direction before finding Jason. “Good morning, Jason.”

Jason glanced at his watch. “It’s three in the afternoon.”

“It is?” Frank smacked the side of his head, trying to wake up. “Sorry. We’ve been having some trouble sleeping.”

Jason looked around. “We, as in...?” A senator was asleep on her companion’s shoulder, a thin line of drool trailing down the latter’s toga.

“Everybody. Everybody’s having night terrors.”

Reyna, usually the first to arrive, was almost the last. Her dogs clicked the marble floor behind her. A white sling protruded from her armor and engulfed her left arm. “I apologize. There was an accident at the stables,” she said before anyone had the chance to show concern. “Are all accounted for?”

The usual Roman initiative was barely there. The typical tally of senators was replaced by a soft atmospheric murmur.

Frank drew his sword and smacked the flat against his chestplate. The CLANG was akin to somebody tossing a commercial grade wok at their shitty neighbor’s lawnmower. The sleepers screamed and fell out of their seats while Reyna repeated, louder, “Are  _ all _ accounted for?”

Meanwhile, Jason counted under his breath. “Ninety-nine, one hundred. That’s the whole Senate,” he said. “Is anyone else supposed to be here?”

“Don’t wait up!” Lucretia shouted, out of breath, as she entered the senate house. “The Romans have a lot of secret techniques, but we’ve yet to reinvent pilates. Somebody should do that!”

Reyna looked vaguely perturbed, but she kept looking for missing faces in the crowd. “There’s only nine centurions. Has anyone seen Michael?”

“I think he was making an offering to the Lares,” Frank said, low-key yawning. “For good luck.”

Lucretia scoffed. “How lucky can they be? They’re dead.”

Jason tried to sidle up to Reyna. “Praetor, I need a word—”

“We’re starting with or without him,” Reyna said. “There’s been a security breach.”

* * *

Surprisingly, quite a few people wanted to say goodbye to Octavian. Leo was less surprised when he realized most were small children. Nico didn’t get how that made more sense.

“Little kids don’t fear the unknown,” Leo said as a very young boy clung to Octavian’s leg and he tried to shake him off. The gate loomed behind him, bare of trees on this side, like a very morbid school picture backdrop. “They think he’s magic or something. A girl in arts and crafts told me that he’ll grant you a wish if you pull his beard.”

Octavian lost balance, fell on his face, and was immediately tackled by twenty children and a chicken.

“I mean, they’re not wrong,” Nico admitted. “...About being magic. Not the beard thing.”

“Have you checked?”

“What do you mean, ‘Have I checked?’”

“Have you pulled his beard?”

“No!”

“Then how do you know he won’t grant you a wish if you pull his beard?”

Nico’s eyes darted from the camp wall lurking in the periphery, Jud, who was looming near the crowd, and the door to the gift shop. Leo coughed, then quietly said, “Where’s Pam?”

“She said she had to put on her game face, whatever that means.”

Pam came out of the gift shop holding a big spray bottle. Leo asked if she was still good for the plan.  _ IT’S COOL— _ well, that’s likely what she meant by the “I’m fine” sign.

“Can you still bait them?”

_ I WAS OUT OF ONIONS, SO I GOT THIS. _

Pam showed him the bottle. “Is that bear spray?” Nico said.

_ IT’LL WORK, WON’T IT? _

“I… suppose,” Leo said. “We’re going to go over there so they don’t suspect anything. The second Teresa punches in the code, you distract her and Jud.”

Nico and Leo wandered, seemingly aimless, to the other side of the gathering crowd of campers trying to spy the commotion. Teresa emerged from a building to assess the situation, a plastic whistle dangling out of her mouth, but unblown as she squinted at what was going on. “Alright, alright!” she shouted at the children. “Enough, already!”

She blew the whistle, but it only squeaked pitifully. Leo had taken the liberty of removing the ball. Ezra came up and banged the gift shop wall. “Everyone quiet!” he bellowed.

They were.

“Alright. For safety reasons, we need to get back from the gate,” he said in his sugary sweet Blue’s Clues voice. “It’s a very old gate and we don’t need it falling over and crushing somebody, okay? Come on, come here.”

Ezra herded the children back from the gate. Nico’s eyes darted around as Teresa punched in the passcode.

The gate began to rattle.

Some paces away, Pam stood in the bushes. Leo heard a shaking sound, a spritzing sound, and then a scream. “What? What happened?” Teresa shouted, running over there— _ BLAP. _ The handle of a garden hoe came up from the bushes and smacked her in the face. Leo tried to resist smiling. Eyes on the prize. “Son of a b—”

Ezra gasped. “Teresa! Language!”

“Mmm… biscuit!”

“Back up, kids!” Ezra said, desperately trying to keep the children from from the danger zone. “Keep away! The next one could be a giant anvil!” Ezra’s heel caught the nearly-invisible tripwire behind him, and a net suddenly scooped him up. “...Son of a biscuit.”

The gate began opening. How slow could that thing go?

Jud rushed towards Pam like a charging bull. “Why you little—!”

Before neither Leo nor Nico could intercept, there was a loud  _ snap _ and a  _ crunch _ . Jud screamed and toppled. His leg stuck out of the underbrush, a bear trap clamped around it.

“FUCK!”

The gate was barely open by a foot, but that was all they needed.

Leo darted through the gap.

* * *

Well, if they weren’t awake before, the Senate was definitely awake now.

“Lies!” someone cried. “Lies and slander! The Hunters just want to make us look bad!”

“For what reason? It’s probably those Camp Gilead people! I knew they were troublemakers!”

“ _ They don’t know who we are! _ ”

“Do they?”

“Maybe he’s just a defector!”

“Or an exile!”

“An exile, who could be feeding them information about New Rome!”

Meanwhile, Jason was carrying an inflatable kiddie pool and a hose into the Senate house. He hooked up the hose to the nearest water connection. He’d  _ really _ needed to speak with Reyna for the past few days, but it looked like it would have to wait. Again. “Frank,” said Reyna, sounding profoundly tired. “Hit your chestplate again.”

Frank did. The Senate quieted down.

“We’re establishing a conference call between Camp Half-Blood, Percy Jackson, and the Hunters using…” Reyna seemed to forget what Iris Messaging was called. The night terrors must have been affecting her too. “...The latest donut technology,” she said very quickly, “so we can plan our next steps.”

“Did it have to be donut shaped?” Frank said, looking at the kiddie pool in distaste.

Jason turned on the water and adjusted the nozzle until the stream was a wide, but fine mist. “I literally had to steal this from someone’s backyard, so if you see an angry mom named Helen, don’t let her in.”

“Oh.”

Jason took a drachma from his pocket. “O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, show me Calypso at the Hunters’ camp. Also, uh, can you make the image really big? Thanks.” He tossed it into the hose spray.

The spray gradually resolved into the image of a young girl, maybe fifteen, in a puffy white jacket. The image was big enough that the whole Senate should’ve been able to see her. She squinted; maybe her end wasn’t as clear. “Thalia?”

Reyna stood in front of the Iris Message. “No, this is the Roman Senate.”

Calypso seemed taken aback at suddenly being called by so many people. “Well… hello, Roman Senate. I’m Calypso?” she said, waving nervously.

“Hi, Calypso,” the senators said in unison, with all the energy of a class of middle schoolers being forced to greet the teacher. (Frank was a beat late, so there was an awkward echo to it.)

“Where is Thalia Grace?” Reyna said.

“At Camp Half-Blood. She thought they would trust her more if she spoke to them in person. Sorry.”

“If she can’t do it, do  _ you _ have the authority to show us the prisoner?”

“That, I can do. Give me a second.”

Calypso went offscreen. A few senators dozed off before she came back, signalled by a few grunts of effort moments before she reappeared, dragging someone who was just out of view.

“Okay,” Calypso sighed. “He’s being uncooperative, I don’t know why. Come on, get up.”

The sleepy senators roused, intrigued. The ones who’d already dozed off were quickly roused, one by getting his asscheek slapped so hard it echoed hauntingly off the marble columns. Reyna pinched the bridge of her nose.

Eventually, Calypso managed to brute-force the prisoner into the image. His hair and beard were overgrown; his face was sunburnt. A piece of cloth was crammed between his teeth. Reyna squinted at his forehead. Jason also squinted. The crazed look in his eye was so familiar that he wondered if this was somebody he forgot.

“What’s that writing?”

“It says ‘SHAVE ME.’ We’re not sure who wrote these instructions or why, so we’re going to hold off on following them.”

Reyna raised an eyebrow. “Can you take the gag out? We’d like to ask him some questions.”

“Not without Thalia’s permission. He bit someone when we caught him. Besides, he doesn’t talk, whether you gag him or not.”

“Not at all?”

“Not even his name.” Calypso turned him around so they could see his arms, and pulled up the ragged sleeve of his sweatshirt to expose the tattoo. “The hoodie’s got a lot of blood on it… you can’t really see the tattoo that well, but it’s got the SPQR and seven lines.”

“What else?” Reyna said. Everyone else was too busy turning their heads sideways to ask. She added, quietly, “Don’t do that, it makes us look silly. Jason, connect us with Camp Half-Blood.”

“Uh… it’s a lyre.”

“We’ll look through the records for any exiled or MIA children of Apollo who only served seven years.”

“I’m calling,” Jason announced. “O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, show me the rec room at Camp Half-Blood.”

The second Iris Message had considerably more trouble loading. The mist floated and rearranged until it finally resolved.

They were shown a pile of burning debris.

* * *

Leo should’ve run as fast as his legs could take him, but every five minutes he turned and made sure Nico was still behind him. Sometimes, Nico wasn’t.

They’d discussed the plan shortly after Nico was sprung from the hole and Octavian recovered from the seizure. When Teresa opened the gate to let Octavian out, Pam would pretend to hurt herself (or actually hurt herself, as it turned out). The present staff would get booby trapped. Meanwhile, Nancy would be with Abraham on the other side of camp, convincing him to exorcise the chicken coop. While the jailers were all occupied, they would run.

But they hadn’t factored in the gunshot wound.

“Hey… wait.” Leo slowed down. Nico jogged up, feeling the strain in his wounded muscle.“I think I can shadow travel again,” he gasped.

“Dude, you’re about to pass out as it is. There’s a gym on the other side of these woods. We can get water there, and then we can find that Polish lady’s house. ...She helped me escape last time,” Leo explained after seeing Nico’s confused expression.

“Okay.”

“You need to lie down?”

“No.”

They went deep into the trees. Following the road might’ve been easier, but it would’ve been too easy for the camp staff to find them. Even in the limited light, Nico was obviously pale as a sheet. Leo offered his arm. “Come on. Hold onto me.”

Nico slipped his hand into Leo’s. It was warm. He kept hobbling forward, even though his leg was killing him. “We didn’t have to run at the same time,” he muttered. “You could’ve left me. I would’ve been fine.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“I’m fine now.”

“No, you’re not.”

Nico still felt the pangs of regret (and hunger, since while he was allowed to eat, he gave most of his food to the allies who weren’t) in his stomach. If a goddess of knowledge tells you get the fuck out of dodge, what do you call the decision to go in? And all he’d done was trigger Ezra’s mental breakdown and get Leo beaten worse than he would’ve been.

Leo squeezed his hand. “First off, you’re gay. If I left you, Abraham would be all over you for that. You’re also a demigod. If you do magic on accident—and you will—that’s a death sentence.”

“I’ve been through worse.”

“What, are you trying to beat your high score? Why do you punish yourself?”

“Why do you?”

They paused.

“Too deep?” Nico said.

“Too deep,” Leo agreed. “Anything else you want to talk about? We’re going to be walking for a while.”

“Actually, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Hm, yeah?”

“Did you leave someone behind last time?”

“Shut up.”

“No need to be rude.”

“No, we’re leaving the woods,” Leo said. He pointed at a gap in the trees. “Clean up. Act natural. Maybe—maybe turn your shirt inside-out, so nobody can see the Camp Gilead logo.”

Nico brushed the leaves from his hair and flipped his shirt like Leo asked, but he could see that the other was bothered by the question. He’d save it for later. Leo had some issues getting his shirt loose from his tool belt, so Nico helped. They stepped into the sun and walked through the field. “Does that have anything we can use in it?”

“What, like if we get caught?”

“I was thinking more like money.”

Leo’s eyes lit up. “What if—” He stuck his hand in a pocket. “Give me a drachma.”

He pulled out a gold drachma. “Yes!” Nico whispered.

Leo whistled in appreciation. “Wish I knew that in Gilead.”

“It would’ve been useless anyway. If none of the Olympians want to approach Gilead, Iris Messages won’t work.”

“I’m sorry, the Olympians  _ what? _ ”

“Oh, wow. I thought I told you about that,” Nico said, wincing. Demigod-talk was actually a very small fraction of their conversations at Camp Gilead. Most of the time, they were censoring themselves, hoping the staff weren’t listening in, just trying to keep each other sane. “Yeah, the gods told everyone to stay out. Something about how… if you were rescued, it would be too risky?”

After a long silent period: “Hey, Nico?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think God hates us?”

Nico put up his fists. “If he does, he’s going to catch these hands.”

“...That wasn’t a joke,” Leo added.

But Nico couldn’t think of a legitimate answer to the question.

It took an hour’s walk to get to the gym, and by then they were both thoroughly mussed. “Still got that drachma?” Nico said as they approached the building. Leo patted his thigh in a silent “yes.” Nico only allowed himself a quick glance at said thigh.

They walked into the gym, signing the sign-in sheet with fake names and going immediately into the bathroom. It gave Nico a sense of deja vu. It was pure white, just like the bathroom at the charity ball—the place he first encountered Camp Gilead in. But this one was their ticket out.

Nico turned the water on hot until steam rose up from the sink. They both hovered hopefully around the basin. “O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, show us…”

Leo looked to Nico. Nico shook his head.

“...Jason Grace.”

As soon as the brownish blur of Jason’s tan appeared in the steam, Leo made a noise that Nico initially interpreted as a short, sharp laugh.

“Hello?” Jason’s voice was garbled, but it was there.

“JG, my man!” It sounded like he was struggling to get the words out. “My dude! Long time no see.”

Jason’s jaw fell open. “Leo?”

“In the flesh, buddy!” Leo’s mouth was smiling, but his eyes were shiny, like he was ready to cry. Nico reached out a little bit, but retracted. “How’s it going?”

“We tried sending you Iris Messages, but they never went through! Where are you?”

“We’re—”

Someone knocked on the door. 

“Hello?”

They knocked again. Leo put his hands over his mouth.

“This is the police!”

They kept knocking. Keys jingled.

* * *

Jason pinched himself. Then he dumped water on his face. Then he pinched himself again.

When the Senate contacted Chiron, they eventually learned that Will Solace and Grover Underwood had taken the brunt of the blast. A lot of people were burned or hit by debris—nobody had died yet, but four were in critical condition, Grover included.

Jason put his head in his hands. He hadn’t wanted this. Had he?

He went out and found himself in the same hallway as Reyna. There was this—this strained look on her face, the weight of the world had just gotten a little heavier, and it sort of teased at this memory that was almost there but not quite, so he was grabbing at it like a wet bar of soap in the shower.

Reyna told him what more information they’d received—they’d located the source of the blast, a tiny strawberry-shaped bomb in the pizza box. It was rigged to detonate when the lid was opened.

“I received word of your sister,” she said. “Thalia and Hazel were in a closet when the bomb went off, so they were shielded from the blast. Your girlfriend, Piper, was burned, but they expect her to make a full recovery.”

“My g—Piper?”

“...Yes,” Reyna said slowly. “Are you feeling alright?”

“It’s fine; Piper’s not my girlfriend anymore.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, she broke up with me when she found out I sold my soul.”

Reyna began to say something else, then stopped.

“Excuse me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Write-ups are back! I might go back and do some retroactively, but for now I’m just gonna appreciate what I have. Protip: google the phrases I have as chapter titles. The full Bible verse may contain foreshadowing.
> 
> The Nico/Leo POVs take place a few days before Epistles III/the Jason POVs.
> 
> Also, here’s something I should’ve said from the beginning. If anybody’s expecting smut in this, you’ve got another thing coming. The main pairing are 15 and 16 years old during the fic, so they’re not going to do anything wilder than cuddling.
> 
> I drew that plotline out way longer than I should’ve, so we are in fact getting an explanation of what’s going on with Jason. Nobody understood the poodle allusion, which surprised me. Also, the reason why Piper has had only one (1) line in this whole 50k fic is only partly because I have no idea how to write her. The other reason is that if she showed up, she’d help people communicate and god knows we can’t have that.
> 
> Grover is not doing well. Those who remember certain parts of the lore may realize why that’s plot relevant.
> 
> At this point, Leo and Nico have gone from “those two guys who act like the begrudging main characters in a buddy cop movie” to “so tight they sometimes mimic each other.” Leo briefly does that thing Nico does where he gives advice that he wouldn’t follow himself, and Nico makes a joke to distract from a horribly fatalistic situation. 
> 
> As to why they haven’t ever sat down and had a legitimate discussion about whether God is real and hates them, over the past… week or so (I need to check my timeline) they’ve been focused on surviving and escaping. Something about that is about to shift.
> 
> Final note: anybody want an illustration from me? What scene would best befit that?


	17. All Who Draw the Sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had this chapter titled "Alright, Who's Not Dead? Sound Off" for a while, so let that be its own warning.
> 
> ...Actually, here's another warning. There is a somewhat graphic rape flashback in this chapter. I'm not sure whether it's explicit enough to change the content rating, but if you're reading this right after it was posted, proceed with extreme caution.

NOW

On the day Annabeth was meant to be sent home, she’d recovered a significant fraction of her vision; not enough to read a book, but enough to find the TV remote and flip through the same three channels unaided while trying to avoid eating the hospital food. “A massive explosion at Trium—” “Home of challenge pissing—” “Jones’ barbecue and foot massage!”

In the hallway, Percy smacked the hospital vending machine. The peanut butter cookies would not budge.

“Oh, come on.” Percy crouched and stuck his arm up the machine. Couldn’t reach it. “Heavens to Betsy,” he grumbled. “I just want the nuts.”

Percy looked up and down the hallway. Nobody was there, so he took out Riptide and clicked it open. Percy Jackson, a grown-ass man, stuck his magic sword in the vending machine and wiggled it around to get a thing of Nutter Butters.

“Hey, Percy!” Annabeth called, and for a moment he froze because he thought something was wrong. “We’re getting an IM!”

“Just a second,” he said.

...Riptide would not dislodge from the vending machine.

He kicked the machine. “Percy, come on,” Annabeth repeated. Whatever, it would come back if he lost it. Percy went back to the bedside, where a cloud of mist formed into a tiny constellation of camp counselors.

They were given the rundown about Leo, the messenger, and Camp Gilead.

Hazel came closer to the message. “He can’t be one of ours,” she said. “If we put a spy in that camp, we would’ve told you.”

“Then you’ve got somebody unaccounted for,” Annabeth said. Her eyes narrowed as she leaned forward onto her hands. That was good—it meant she could see well enough to know where the message was and that she wasn’t putting her head through it.

Grover, though not visible due to the limits of the closet, spoke up from somewhere. “Um, hi. Did someone order pizza?” The counselors burst into murmurs. Percy said hi to Grover but he didn’t think he was heard over the commotion. He made a note to talk to him more personally later. Percy almost died for the guy a few years back; he felt like he at least owed him a call.

“What kind of pizza?” Will Solace shouted.

Grovered sniffed the closed box. “Strawberry?”

The commotion got louder and angrier.

“Hey! Quiet!” Annabeth said. “Grover, please put that away. I’m trying to argue about something important, not what belongs on pizza and what doesn’t.”

The room quieted.

“I mean,” Will Solace said, “I’ll eat it.”

Frenzied shouting started yet again as Grover obligingly passed Will the pizza. “That’s him, officer!” Percy offered. “That’s the guy right there! Take the shot before he gets away!” He only stopped when Annabeth sighed, looking like she’d aged ten years.

“What? It’s just food! It’s not like it’s gonna kill me.”

Percy willed himself to stop laughing. “Okay, okay. We’ve gotten off track. Thalia, can you describe what the tattoo looked like?”

“I didn’t get a good look at it, but there was a harp. We’re holding the guy in a camp in New Jersey. I can get a line from—”

_BOOM._

The message vanished. “What was that?” Annabeth said. “...Percy?”

And then the pain hit.

Percy screamed until the doctors got there, and then he went into shock.

THEN

Nancy sat in the gym lobby and waited for the police to come back.

They couldn’t find them in the bathroom, but the window was open, so they charged back out of the building. She watched them go—just snitching on the escapees would net benefits, but if the cops actually caught them, Gilead would pay her college tuition.

She had _considered_ actually helping them. That had to count for something, right? But when she actually got Abraham in the chapel, he started talking about her future and how she would need an education once she got out and, well, she couldn’t turn down that kind of opportunity. Without a degree, what could she do? End up like one of those chronic camp employees who couldn’t get another job?

God would understand!

Anyway, she was sitting in the lobby, and Abraham and the receptionist were talking to the police, and she was sniping the candy dish trying to figure out how many peppermints she could take before anyone noticed, and some guy came in from the weight room.

“Now, what’s going on out here?” he said. He had a sort of lisp.

Nancy arched her eyebrows. This guy wasn’t bad-looking—tan, nicely built, blond. Honestly, she’d want to hit that if she weren’t busy. “Eh. Just some domestic problems. Nothing to worry your pretty little head over.”

“Okay. Also, where’s the bathroom?”

“Over there,” she said, pointing to the door.

If Nancy had paid more attention, she might’ve heard people talking in there—not Leo, someone else—but she didn’t. Rather, she popped another peppermint in her mouth. She paused.

Nancy looked quickly at Abraham. He didn’t glance in her direction. So she darted out the building and vomited in the bushes.

She was still bent over the foliage when the bus pulled up. Trying to act casual while wiping the bile from her mouth, she wondered if Teresa really didn’t have wheels other than that stupid Jesus-loves-me bus.

Teresa stepped out of the bus. Her straight bangs were askew and a large bruise was forming right down the middle of her face. Jud and Ezra came out of the back, Ezra supporting the other. Ezra had been scooped up with a number of pinecones and forest debris and leaves still stuck to his clothes. Jud looked the worst. The bottom part of his leg was messily bandaged, but visibly gushing under the gauze. The bile was gone, but Nancy mimed wiping her mouth anyway so she wouldn’t laugh too hard.

They convened with the police for a moment. Leo and his newfound boyfriend had escaped out the bathroom window and gone back into the woods. Abraham needed to go on a business trip Right The Fuck Now, so Nancy was apparently obliged to fill his shoes in the search party.

She did, of course. What else should she have done? Seven years of pure bullshit were about to pay off. She wasn’t going to let Leo’s homosexual urges throw it all away.

And besides, it wasn’t as if she could go home. Reverend Bobofit had been a friend of Abraham’s before he drove his car off a cliff and died, and then the money he’d laundered from charity had to be refunded, plus a shitload of cash in damages, plus the funeral. Her mom couldn’t afford Nancy’s tuition, much less Nancy herself. Boy, if she was a pain in the ass now, you should’ve seen her right after her dad died. She drank liquor and sold weed and stole things, and the court fees kept piling up, oh, they kept piling up. And then Abraham stepped in.

Granted, Nancy did have one advantage: a total lack of shame. It made Abraham’s attempts at “reformation” look like a greased up orangutan climbing up a hot tin playground slide. All he’d done was make sure she did all her sins behind a wall so nobody could see them. But that was good enough for her mother. As long as she wasn’t costing so much goddamn money.

Sometimes Nancy looked back on her last year at Yancy, before her dad died. That was the year she took up picking on the crippled kid in her Latin class. It sounded bad in hindsight, but everyone did it. Not as brazenly as Nancy, but they still did it. It was mostly awkwardness around Mr. Brunner—the Latin teacher, who himself was in a wheelchair—that kept them from being more open. This was why she had a D in that class, in her opinion. Nancy thought she was pretty good at Latin, which was true, and that her grade was unwarranted, which was untrue. She never did the homework. But put on the spot, she could spit out a few good sentences, which was the reason why she passed at all. This was how she operated in English class, too, and also Spanish, the one year she tried it.

Aside from that, Nancy didn’t have much talent. Bothering people was the highlight of her life. There was that aforementioned crippled kid, and his angry little friend, P—Peter? It started with a P. Whatever, it isn’t important anyway.

Once she managed to piss him off so badly he pushed her in a fountain, and then... she didn’t remember much after that.

She must have hit her head or something. It made sense—she didn’t remember a lot of that year, now that she thought of it. Nancy only really noticed near the end of the year, when her pre-algebra grades were in the toilet and she was faced with the realization that she had to study.

Nancy had cracked open her bag and ventured into the back of the big compartment, where her old pre-algebra papers lived, when she realized something was odd. Her classwork from around January didn’t have the right name on it. “Who’s Mrs. Dodds?” she asked her roommate.

“Isn’t she, like, the lady who dated Giles on Buffy?”

“Nah, that’s not it. I found this old quiz, and it’s got her name on it.”

“Well, you had a different math teacher for a hot minute in August. The lady with the brown hair and wacky sweaters?”

Nancy knew who she was talking about, the face of the first teacher, but somehow her mental image wasn’t coming together. She could only picture that teacher wearing a leather jacket, despite knowing that was wrong. “...I don’t know,” she’d said doubtfully.

Presently, she stood at the edge of the woods with the Three Stooges who’d hopped out of the bus. The trees were dense and threatened to block all light.

“I think this should be a job for the police,” Teresa said for the third time in the hour. She was still wearing her office shoes.

Jud did not like that at all, to put it lightly. “You know how much it’s gonna set me back if that trap cut a tendon? The police is too good for them. I’m taking care of this.”

He waded into the forest unceremoniously.

“...Alright,” Teresa sighed. “Someone has to go make sure he doesn’t collapse from blood loss.”

She turned around and saw Nancy and Ezra with fingers touching the tips of their noses.

Undeterred, she leered. “Bold of you to assume that was a suggestion.”

NOW

Tied to a much sturdier tentpole than he had expected and guarded by a couple of teenage girls who talked like extras in a bad production of Hamlet, Octavian was forced to ponder the future, and for once, that was something he dreaded to do.

If Lucretia was to be believed, he could never change the future anyway. “Neveeer!” he could hear his grandmother drawling.

He hadn’t been inclined to believe her, standing over a split carcass with the liver peeled out and set on the altar’s corner. She said, “Now this is the fancy way, sonny, but you can’t get one of these in a pinch. If you consult your local avian, however,” but Octavian had other things on the brain.

There had to be some way to outsmart fate. A fluke of liver couldn’t be _that_ clever...

If the gods say that you’ll burn pancakes today, no matter what happens, you will burn pancakes. You can try not making pancakes. That’ll only result in increasingly zany circumstances, until finally, the eggs and flour and milk you dropped on the floor will mix with the house fire, creating burned pancakes. He was forced to give up defying fate after this incident, if only because the property damage was too high.

There was no such thing as free will. There was no such thing as a “choice.”

He attempted to pull up the pole. It was sturdy, but loose in the ground. One of the Hunters took notice and rapped the side of his head with her bow. “Sitteth thee down, th’art not going anywh’re until the good lieutenant sayeth thee can.”

“Yond’s the the prison’r?” the other Hunter said doubtfully.

“Nay, that gent’s just a sir we did tie to a pole f’r excit’ment. _Aye,_ yond’s the prison’r! Didst thee just bloweth in from Stupidton?”

“I hath heard the prison’r wast a Roman,” she said defensively. “I wast expecting a shav’d bear, not the long-lost fourth Robertson broth’r who cannibaliz’d Guy Fieri and f’rgot to wipeth his frost’d tips off his visage.”

Yeah, you and him both, pal. Did he really look so different with the beard? He had the desire to scratch it, and was saved from the inanity of the gesture only by the tentpole.

The first punched the second playfully on the shoulder. “Malapert! That gent hast a nameth, thee knoweth.”

“Well, what is’t?”

“Alas, I knoweth not. He nev’r said. The closest we’ve hadst to a conv’rsation wast at which hour we pri’d yond table hence from him. Acc’rding to ‘t, he wast going to Camp Half-Blood bef’re we int’rcept’d him.” Anonymity, thy name is Octavian.

“Strange. Ev’ryone’s been running hence _from_ there in recent days. And thee sayeth he went on foot?”

“Aye, aye, I hath said aye! What w’re _thee_ doing whilst we w’re capturing this clown?”

“What timeth wast yond?”

“Two in the aft’rnoon!”

“Aye, yond’s wherefore. I hadst eaten some spoil’d rabbit stew, so I hath spent the bett’r parteth of yond hour shitting mineself in a bush,” the second Huntress said. She then continued, over the first’s uproarious laughter: “Fie, chuckle ‘t up, mushrump! Art thee done? Can thee bid me what this sir hast to doth with us, anon?”

“We know not his part, but hark, the table eke maketh mention of their two lost campers. We can’t just alloweth him slith’r out of h’re.”

It already occurred to Octavian a while ago that if Valdez was to be believed, they wouldn’t let him go. The Hunters of Artemis were a pipeline to the Greeks, and if the Greeks and Romans were in cahoots (which felt fundamentally _wrong_ , but today pigs fly), Camp Half-Blood would hand him over to the Roman authorities.

When he was Pontifex, he’d justified his actions by stating that they weren’t _technically_ illegal. But now that Reyna was back in the saddle, and had most likely passed laws to keep something like that from happening again, his actions were pretty goddamn illegal.

He tried to console himself. The jury might be merciful. In Rome, most crimes weren’t punishable by death. Except treason, which would get you an axe to the neck faster than you could say “...”

And he’d committed that one, technically. Damn. There was no way out—

Someone blew a horn. The camp burst into frenzy. “To arms?” one of Octavian’s guards said eagerly, poking her head out of the tent.

“No! Buckets! Waterskins!” a passing Hunter cried. “Any pitchers you have! There’s a fire!” Their eagerness vanished as a plastic pail was thrust at them. They abandoned the guard and began evacuating, presumably to fulfill his drug-induced vision. He was left alone.

—unless he escaped before the Hunters figured out who he was.

This was a horribly uncomfortable thought that kept looping in on him every minute or so. A year ago, he would’ve done it at a moment’s notice. Just get to the city, locate his sister, and hide with her for a bit. Not great, and a painful loss of his ambitions, but a definite step up from Gilead.

Even Valdez had anticipated this, and went so far as to write “SHAVE ME” on his forehead and give him a letter before his flight through the gate.

They hadn’t gotten the letter, even though they had _But… You’re A Gaul_ , AKA his please-keep-me-from-spiraling-into-despair familial keepsake/journal/trashy romance novel. There was nothing too incriminating in there; he’d been too paranoid in Gilead to let much slip, even in private. The most he’d poured his heart out was in the hospital room with Valdez and di Angelo, and even so, he wasn’t entirely open. To be so was against his own nature as a person.

Octavian kept _the letter_ in his shoe. Nobody would look there, so if honesty happened, he’d choose it himself, for a certain value of “choose.” If he betrayed his allies, he had been, was, and was always going to be, a traitor.

The thing that unsettled him was—well, this was new—what would happen to everyone else.

He wiggled the pole. The Hunters took no notice, even as the tent’s top deformed and finally collapsed with his effort. Damn, damn, damn. That pole was more important than he thought it was. Octavian writhed around, blind, gnashing his teeth, trying to pull the rope down off the end of the pole. The Hunters’ supplies had been throw askew by the tent’s fall and arrows poked at his ribs. It wasn’t pretty. It made him feel like a wild animal.

If he’d had the choice, he would have kept the secret of what Jud had done to his grave. It wasn’t a poetic loss of innocence. He already had no innocence, in both the sexual and broadest sense of the word—if you’re making a back room deal and the other guy doesn’t want money, you have to suck it up, buttercup—and the thing really got him the worst wasn’t even the pain, it was how quiet it was. He thought it was supposed to be something that takes place in the dark while you scream and scream and nobody hears you. In reality there wasn’t much to be heard. There was no screaming. There was just the shf-shf of the bird feed, and the distant thuds of boombox hymns, and the rustling of the trees, and the soft clucks of the chickens, and an organic grunt almost like a cough, and the chalkboard-scratch wet slaps, and really it was almost comical, just the noises, it was really the sort of bad production he would laugh at if he saw it in a movie, and then there was this rancid squish and it was over.

Five minutes later, Octavian was mowing the lawn, because that’s what he was supposed to do on Wednesday mornings. He only finished a third of it before sitting down on the grass and crying.

Jud was only one man. Gilead was comprised of many men with similar brutalities. How would the home team fare against them?

The rope finally slid off the end of the pole. He brought his bound hands over his legs and to his front to tear the gag off. He found an arrowhead and used it to cut himself loose.

When he found the edge of the tent and dared peek out, most of the Hunters were gone. There were only a few guards at the camp perimeter. Largely, they didn’t notice the sliver of face poking out of the collapsed tarp, as their gazes were directed outwards.

He could make a break for it. Go for one of the gaps. They weren’t looking for someone going out.

Or he could give his people a sliver of a chance at surviving, and die.

So this is what having a conscience is like, Octavian thought crossly as he approached the guard. Getting shot out of the onager was more fun. But he did it anyway, because he had no choice.

THEN

Nancy didn’t like trees, which made her a bad fit for upstate New York. Any situation where she couldn’t walk in a straight line was unpleasant for her. These particular trees were grown so closely together that it felt more like she was climbing than walking. “Are we dealing with gay squirrels? How the fuck did they move so fast?”

Ezra struggled equally. “Can you even see Jud?”

“Not a lick.”

“Ugh.” He kicked a tree, making a blunt scraping sound in the shade. Nancy blew a greasy strand of hair out of her face.

“Hey, Ez?” Ezra threw himself through a gap in two trees, one leg trailing behind and having to be hauled awkwardly over. He ignored her totally. “Ezra.”

“What?” he snapped.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Nancy said, pulling herself through the same gap. Ezra continued ahead with no regard as to whether she could keep up. He probably would have slowed down if he picked up on the fact that he needed to. But that was Ezra.

He picked a pinecone out of his hair. “Can’t it wait until we’re back at camp?”

“No, Ezra, it _really_ can’t.” His profile next to the tree was like a knife, with no softness of the chin, cheek, or forehead. “I don’t want Abraham hearing about it.”

“Well, what is it,” he said without turning around.

A bullet whizzed by Ezra’s ear, and there was a screaming behind him.

NOW

Hazel was worried that she was performing CPR wrong. But since the person who would have corrected her on the matter was having his chest pumped, it was a moot point.

Will Solace laid blackened on the green lawn several yards out from the Big House, the side of which looked like a popped balloon. The explosion’s radius wasn’t wide enough to bring the whole building down. The fire, on the other hand, was getting there, and even now lit up the walls of nearby cabins.

Hazel got lucky. In addition to being further away from the blast, she’d worn her armor to the meeting since she was technically present as a representative of Rome.

She pumped a few times, then blew, and checked his pulse. Still nothing.

Will’s ribs cracked under her hands when she next pressed down. That’s when Piper came and took over. That didn’t comfort her at all—quite the opposite. “Oh gods, are you okay?”

A great deal of Piper’s face was blackened, similar to Will, but on closer inspection Hazel had the gut-churning feeling that this wasn’t going to come off with a wash. “I’ll be fine. Put out the fire!” she said between blows.

So she did.

Ask any demigod who would best put out a fire, and in a pinch they would tell you Percy. What they wouldn’t tell you is that Hazel would follow closely after. A mob of bystanders bearing pitchers and buckets and bowls rushed towards the Big House and were promptly blinded by a wall of dust. Crashes and shouting rang out before it cleared. The Big House and surrounding cabins were now very dirty, and had some structural questions to be asked, but the flames had been smothered.

The nymphs went and put out the smolders. People were loaded onto stretchers and taken to… somewhere; not the infirmary. It was close enough to the Big House that if the blast hadn’t gotten to it, the fire would have.

Hazel’s ears were ringing, both from the explosion and from the effort of summoning the dust cloud. Somehow, a voice cut through the noise: “Hello? Is anyone there?”

Reyna. Hazel swiveled to find her and almost fell over. Her feet told her she was standing up, but every other part of her body was acting as if she’d been strapped into a big gyroscope. Another Iris Message had appeared—right above the ruined sink that Hazel had pried herself out of. There were probably bits of plastic stuck in her hands. She would deal with that later.

Hazel dusted off her golden armor as she approached the message. She cleared her throat. “Praetor,” she said. “There’s been an... incident.”

She hoped to say “accident,” but the stars seemed too aligned for it to be so.

“Look!” someone shouted, and there was a wave of inarticulate screaming. And Hazel turned just in time to see the Zeus cabin, in its solid-columned glory, crack its own marble with pops like gunshots, and begin making its majestic impression of a crushed can of coke.

THEN

“Holy shit, you almost killed me!” Ezra cried.

Teresa emerged from the bushes, cocking her firearm. “Calm down. I didn’t.”

After a few moments of confusion, Nancy’s mind-wave collapsed to a plausible model, and she said: “Holy shit yourself—what happened to that high-and-mighty ‘don’t even use the name of God in vain’ stuff?”

Ezra crossed his arms. “I’ve had a gun fired at my head, among other things. I’m allowed to say it once.”

That was _odd_. Nancy had known Ezra for six years and six short but memorable minutes rolling in the hay, and not once had he sworn. And if he ever did, he would have blushed and covered his face afterwards, not… whatever this was. (She thought it made him look too much like a child.) (Not the best thought to have in the sack.)

Ezra found the possession and the blood in the water disturbing, but Nancy was more upset by this. She reconsidered telling him. Did she even know for sure?

Nancy placed her hands on her stomach, as if that would help her divine what was going on in there.

“Basic gun safety,” he grumbled. “Don’t point it at anything you wouldn’t miss.”

“Oh, I _know_ my gun safety,” Teresa said. “I thought I saw something move behind you. Must’ve been a squirrel.”

Ezra threw his hands up. “Well, last I checked, it isn’t fall, so don’t confuse us with the leaves.”

Teresa grunted and set off into the other direction as them.

They walked.

“...We still have to talk about it,” Nancy said.

“There has to be a better time than right now.”

“There might not be _any_ time except right now! Ezra, I don’t know what’s going on with you, or Abraham, or anything else, but in case you haven’t noticed, we’re hoarding guns and bombs. I know I come off as an edgy asshole, but that still doesn’t sit right with me. What’s going on?”

Ezra was quiet. “Are you itchy? I’m itchy, all of a sudden.” He scratched at his hand bandages.

Nancy tripped and fell. “Ow!”

“Nancy? Where are you?”

“Down here,” she said, getting up and brushing herself off. “Well, on the bright side, I landed on my stomach. Might’ve saved money on a—oh my god. Oh my god.”

Nancy was kneeling in blood. Paces away was a just barely supine Leo, propped against a log, or perhaps death’s doorstep, gripping at the gushing hole in his side. He raised a reddened finger to his lips.

But it was too late; Ezra heard her outburst and went looking. He scrambled into the pit she’d fallen in, looking frantic, but then his eyes laid on Leo. His brow furrowed. “Leo.”

“Oh, would you look at that,” he said weakly. “You still remember my name.”

Ezra revved up to shout. “Te—”

Leo lifted one hand. It was shaking. “Wait. Listen.”

Okay, Nancy thought, watching Ezra go pale.

“I don’t know where you are on the existential crisis timeline, and yeah—I’m sorry about that. But I think Teresa hit something important.” He returned his hand to the wound and winced. “‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Remember that?”

“Ezra, we gotta take him to the hospital,” Nancy said.

Ezra shook his head. “The hospital will ask questions.”

“I didn’t say ‘hospital,’” Leo said.

Silence.

“No. How did you—”

“Nancy told me about her scar. I just put two and two together.”

“I said _no_.” Ezra was sweating.

Nancy, finally able to admit she couldn’t keep up, broke in. “What’s he talking about?”

Leo finally looked up; he’d been so focused on Ezra she’d thought he didn’t realize she was there. His eyes were bleary. She hadn’t known him that well before he ran away the first time. She was there for about a week before he left. Didn’t mean she was okay with killing him, though. “Didn’t you cut yourself at the river?”

She had, and her hand clenched in the fabric of her shorts where the scar was. Her foot had gone down at the wrong time, and her leg was like—it was like deboning a chicken, she could see all the stuff in there. That was scary. She thought that leg was ruined. Then Ezra had come and squeezed it shut while talking about femorals, and great saphenouses, and popliteals, and tibials, and peroneals, and by the time anyone else got there the bleeding had stopped and the cut seemed shallower.

Nancy had mentioned seeing a deeper cut. Ezra said she was seeing things. She’d hoped so.

“Ezra,” she repeated, “ _what_ is he talking about?”

Leo coughed. His skin was too dark to go pale from blood loss, but the sort of redness behind his cheeks was going gray. “I don’t know if you care about me, but I’m pretty sure you care about her.” He nodded at Nancy. “What’ll she think of you if you don’t heal me?”

Nancy grabbed Ezra’s hand and pulled him forward. He yanked himself free. “What are you doing?”

“If you can heal him,” she demanded, “why aren’t you? He’s dying, dumbass!”

“I can’t heal him.”

“I saw you. I fucking saw you. Look at this leg—I knew I wasn’t seeing things.”

Ezra took Nancy tightly by the shoulders. “Listen to me.” He got very close. There were small blood vessels in his eyes that had popped. “I… can’t… heal. Or do anything unusual. You’re remembering it wrong.”

“If you don’t get that nasty hand off me I’ll break you in half.”

Ezra removed his wounded hand with a full-armed flip. Leo tilted his head in a mock show of playfulness. “Don’t keep me waiting,” he said breathlessly.

“There’s nothing to wait for.”

“He is _dying_ ,” Nancy said.

“I can’t do anything about that,” he hissed.

“Why won’t you try? Just go over there and touch him.” Leo was struggling to keep his eyes open, but it was clearly a losing battle. His white-knuckled grip started to weaken. “Look at him! You can’t make it any worse.”

Nancy took Ezra by the wrists and dragged him, physically, to Leo’s side. She pressed her hand over his and pushed into the wound. Leo was in such a shape that he barely reacted, even though reasonably, there should’ve been concerns about the color of the bandages and the stiffness of the hand. “I don’t know how!”

“You fixed me! Why not him?”

“Because what he’s describing _is magic_ !” Ezra snapped. “I’m not a traitor, I’m not magic, and I’m _not_ the son of a pagan god!”

Teresa emerged from the woods, her bulky companion trailing after. The pale boy—the one Leo had run away with—was in her arms. Blood trickled from his temple. His hands and feet were bound with gray tape. “You just _had_ to bonk him, didn’t you?” Teresa grumbled.

“Couldn’t get him to hold still if I didn’t,” Jud shot back.

“Still…” She trailed off when she saw the scene before her. “What’s going on here?”

An unconscious Leo’s shirt was hiked up to his armpits, exposing an old, circular dent in his flesh. There was blood on the ground. “Where did all mess that come from?” Jud said.

Ezra shook his head. “He must have reopened a scar somewhere.”

Nancy looked up when he said this, floored by not only how pathetic the explanation was, but Ezra’s willingness to believe it. Did his own denial really matter more than someone’s life?

It almost had.

“You know what? Whatever. I don’t want to know,” Teresa said, and traipsed off.

Later.

“Put that knife away.”

“I’m just trying to cut the tape.”

“I know you are, and I’m telling you not to.”

“If we don’t cut it, they won’t get out.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“Abraham’s not gonna like this.”

“ _I’ll_ deal with Abraham. You put ‘em in the coffin.”

NOW

Annabeth sat in a chair squeezing Percy’s hand. Percy did not squeeze back.

He wasn’t dead—not yet. A blue tube twisted from a machine and into his mouth, held there by tape. His body was riddled with wounds, and his lungs were badly bruised. The doctors couldn’t figure out why. But Annabeth knew why.

Annabeth couldn’t believe it. She could lose two friends in one day. “Stupid,” she muttered tearfully. “That stupid empathy link. You should’ve broken it after the Giant War.”

She dropped her head onto the bedside.

She only lifted it when a figure appeared in the doorway.

“What are you doing here?”

And Abraham Hill raised a hand in a gesture of peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEEHAW
> 
> Anyway, weird break from usual trends in this fic. Neither Nico nor Leo have any POVs in this chapter. This is because I'm emotionally constipated. I had the Ezra/Leo/Nancy confrontation in my head for a while. Just couldn't figure out how to frame it from Leo's perspective without getting melodramatic, or Ezra's, for that matter. So I took a third option.
> 
> While I was doing that I decided to just hit some other relevant minor characters while I was at it. I'm well aware not all the Hunters talk like Zoe Nightshade, I just got bored writing those random two guards going back and forth, so I plugged their dialogue into a Shakespeare translator, so now they're from the 1500s. I'm reading Hamlet right now, and now you, too, must feel my pain.
> 
> ...
> 
> Did nobody remember the empathy link? From the second book? Nobody except me?
> 
> Also, please tell me if I should add more warnings on the fic because of that paragraph. You know... that one.


	18. Jesus Wept

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This whole chapter is one scene. That's all you need to know.

Nico didn’t want to be conscious. Not because he knew anything bad would happen if he were—awareness requires consciousness—but because he felt fine where he was. Better than fine. The weight and warmth of an arm was wrapped around his shoulders. Nico shifted and buried his face in Leo’s side, his shoulder bumping the lid as he did so.

Lid?

Nico blinked his eyes; the darkness didn’t give way. His wrists felt bound together. He writhed around, waking Leo. “Wha…?”

“Leo, wake up. Where are we?”

Leo coughed and attempted to roll over. He roused when that attempt failed. “Nico?” Leo tumbled until he was practically on top of Nico, hair getting in the other’s mouth. Nico sputtered and attempted to push him off. Given the tightness of the space and the limits of his own motion, it wasn’t as effective as he hoped. “What happened?”

“I was hoping you knew,” Nico said.

Leo pushed his arms—presumably also restrained—past the tangle of Nico and reached for the ceiling.

Nico tapped his reserves of power to get an idea of their elevation.

“...Shit,” he said, in as reserved a voice as he could muster.

“Don’t panic,” Leo said, though Nico’s breathing had already picked up slightly and there wasn’t anything the both of them could do about it. “Are your arms in front?”

“Yeah.” Nico felt like banging on the sides of the box, even though it wouldn’t do any good. He could feel the pressure of the ground bearing down on them. “Belt?”

Leo groped around in the dark. “No. I guess Nancy overdrew at the hero bank. Buck up and bite the tape. Don’t think about it, just focus on one thing at a time, and if you can find it, get the edge of it, and if you’re lucky the whole piece will come off.”

Nico bent over and started gnawing. The noises were gross and squishy and, generally, not what Nico would’ve liked to hear in such close quarters in any situation, especially not Leo Valdez in a matter of life or death.

There was a faint ripping sound as the tape was worn away enough that Leo could remove it. Not so with Nico. With nowhere for their body heat to go, the coffin was getting very hot. His heart thrilled. His mouth went dry. His own bindings were only becoming a mushy, sticky mass of glue.

He gasped softly as he went up for air. “Hey—”

“It’s not—” Nico struggled audibly, and tangibly. One of his knees were between Leo’s. “Hold on.”

“It’s okay, I’ll help you.”

“Help yourself. I’ll get it in a second.”

“Let me get it. It’s okay,” Leo repeated.

Nico suddenly raised his voice: “No, it’s not!”

He tried to move away, but there was nowhere to go, no room to even sit up. “Hey,” he said again, softer this time.

“This all started at that charity ball,” Nico said. He felt smothered, he felt sick. “I had some kind of episode, and I went to the bathroom to clean up, and Ezra was there, and he was looking for Abraham, and I didn’t—I didn’t know, I didn’t know who he was, I didn’t know that he wanted you—”

“Hey,” Leo said again. “Do you need some quiet?” Obviously he couldn’t give Nico much privacy.

Nico grunted an affirmative. He sniffled and kept working as Leo peeled the tape off from around his own ankles. The tape finally got to the point where he could pull it apart with his wrists and wriggle out. “Sorry,” Nico muttered. “What now?”

“Uh…” He heard Leo scratch at the lid. “How far down are we?”

“Average grave depth, I think. That’s six feet.”

“Can you open up the ground?”

Nico took a sharp breath and pressed into the ground. There were vibrations around them, like leaning your head on the bus window. Not enough to get them out. He shook it harder—but cracks opened even further below them. A pang of terror hit him, and he pulled back. “It’s no good. I don’t have the coordination Hazel has—if I try to manipulate the ground, it’ll open up a chasm, and we’ll fall down further.”

Leo was thinking. “How much energy does it take for you to hold a patch of dirt _still?_ ”

“Not much, I don’t think.”

“Can you keep a vertical tunnel from collapsing?”

“Leo, you’re an engineer. You’re telling me you need help digging a hole?”

“From the bottom up, with my bare hands, in the dark,” Leo hissed.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“Sorry. I’m just…” Leo trailed off. Nico couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t great at dealing with other people’s panic attacks at the best of times. Sure, he could jape and jest about the circumstances, and sometimes that worked, but Leo trying to straightforwardly comfort somebody was like a car hitting black ice. And there was not much to joke about here.

“Okay, back up.” Leo found the middle of the coffin, which would bear the most weight, and kicked. There was an audible _crack_ as the cheap wood gave way. “Let a little come through to reduce the pressure.”

Dirt streamed in from the ceiling, stopping after ten seconds, when Nico couldn’t stand it anymore. They scrabbled to push the soil aside. Then Leo clawed the coffin-hole wider.

“I’m gonna start digging.”

Leo reached up through the hole in the wood and took a fistful of dirt. It was still tightly packed despite efforts to relieve the pressure. The digging was accompanied by the sounds of Nico slowly coming closer to the center and scraping the discarded dirt to the edges of the box, so, Hades be willing—because no way was Nico letting God or Zeus near this situation—they wouldn’t choke to death.

Nico pressed his palms against the dirt. It wasn’t much effort, yet, to keep the ceiling from collapsing on them, but it put a subtle pressure on Nico’s bones.

“Let’s look on the bright side,” Leo said, in between clumps of dirt. “One, Jud got tired and decided to not bury us any deeper.”

“Mmm,” Nico acknowledged.

“Two, we’re not hurt too badly to dig our way out. In a way, I’m lucky Teresa shot out my kidney—if she got my arm or something, Ezra wouldn’t have healed me.”

“What?” he said. “She what?”

“Yeah, she fired a warning shot into the trees, and she got me. Must’ve drilled holes in the barrel. Didn’t hear anything… then Nancy tripped and fell in the clearing. Ezra—I guess he’s a son of Apollo, or whatever the Roman equivalent is—”

“Still Apollo.”

“—because I heard about something he did to Nancy, and considering the other stuff… anyway, he didn’t want to heal me. I can’t really blame him. Last time we saw each other didn’t end on good terms. And there’s the whole denial thing. He was adopted by Abraham as a baby, did you know that? I’m not sure he even knows who Apollo is.”

“Is talking this much a good idea?”

“If we just sit here in silence we’re gonna start panicking.”

“Right.” The beginning of the shaft shifted; Nico caught the landslide in time, but it jarred him. His knees shook, fingers curling into the soil. He winced.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” He couldn’t disguise the strain in his voice.

“Don’t wipe out on me, dude.”

“I won’t.” Nico could take a lot before passing out. “...So why did he heal you?”

“Nancy convinced him. She’s got a low bar, but manslaughter still doesn’t clear it, I guess. Nancy is—she’s in the year-round circle, but not in, like, the _inner_ inner circle. ‘Cause places like Gilead, they have tiers. At the bottom, you have the summer campers. They’re treated okay, because they have parents to go back to, but they don’t know much…”

Leo trailed off again. “Keep going,” Nico said.

“You sure? I don’t want to dump all my baggage on you at once.”

“The talking keeps me focused.” Nico would rather focus on anything other than the pain and the walls and the mounting piles of dirt.

“Alright, alright. So you go a little further in, and you have the adopted kids. Abraham’s charity cases. Usually ‘delinquents,’ kids who didn’t have anywhere else, last stop before juvie. That’s me. Next ring in is the outside staff. Like Jud. Not many of those—even though there’s plenty of people on the payroll. Most of the work is handled by the apostles, at least, it was the last time I was here.

“The apostles are—were?—the kids adopted by Abraham either as babies or in elementary school. They were right around the center of it all. A handful of them were grown and officially employed. The others were employees in training. Abraham called ‘em apostles because there’s always twelve of them… but now I’m only seeing Ezra. Something happened there. Hopefully a miracle but probably not.”

“Was one of them named Janet?” Nico said. “Or Mike?”

“No? ...Well, maybe. Mostly the apostles kept to themselves, except Mary Ruth. Mary was her real name, before she was adopted. Abraham changed it to Ruth—the apostles were all named after books of the Bible, and I guess he gave a _couple_ fucks what the outside world thought of him at the time, since I never saw a First Corinthians or anything like that—when she was really young, but since she handled all the paperwork she knew her real name was Mary and started going by that. Abraham was _pissed_. Handed off the paperwork to Ezra.

“Ezra shouldered me part of the work since he could barely read any of it. Terrible ideas all around, because my dyslexia was pretty bad too, and also because Ezra had a crush on Mary Ruth.

“It surprises me how little interest Ezra has in Nancy, actually. She and Mary Ruth would look just alike, if Mary Ruth were raised by goblins. Not to say this was healthy _at all_. I thought it was kind of creepy because when we were ten, Mary Ruth was in, I think, late high school? And she came off more like a mother figure. And also his sister. Freud would have some great things to say about Ezra.

“But otherwise, we got along pretty good. Surprisingly good. You have to understand—if you get to Camp Gilead and you don’t do anything vaguely demonic, it actually doesn’t seem that bad. For the couple of months I managed to not scorch anything it was better than most of the foster homes. At least there was a roof over my head, the food was clean, and I was acknowledged. Right before this, I’d literally slept in a sewer. Nobody had to lock me up. I even did door-to-door field trips in the city. I would’ve taken the Bible and ate it if they told me to.

“...Anyway. It was late, it was about to be lights out, and me and Ezra were closing up the administration building. Mary Ruth pops in, like, ‘hey, could you turn off the lights and be really quiet, but don’t lock up or leave the building?’ So we do.

“Mary Ruth leaves again and she comes back with some of the apostles. She opens up the drawer and pours over their personal files. Shows everyone their birth names.

“Ezra’s last name was something I can’t pronounce, started with an S, ended with a ‘ski.’ Don’t remember the whole thing. I just remember him saying it was a little too fancy for his tastes. I didn’t see everyone’s, but there might’ve been a Janet and a Mike in the bunch.

“Mary Ruth did a lot of crazy little rebellions like that. Ezra always went along because, hey, he liked her. But I didn’t think anything drastic would happen.

“Then one day I walked in the bathroom and Ezra was spitting blood in the sink.

“Turns out Abraham caught him doing Catholic prayers and decked him for it. Now that just about killed me, because I’d just gotten into the headspace of thinking, maybe, just maybe, Abraham’s a safe adult. And a punch for _that?_ It just didn’t add up.

“I confronted him. Burned some stuff, and… you know, things went downhill.

“Everyone bought into the ‘demon’ excuse, including Mary Ruth, but the difference between her and them is that she didn’t care.

“She snuck us out of camp in the middle of the night in the egg truck—we used to have a truck for the eggs, I guess they got rid of it after this. It was supposed to just be me and her, but—I was dumb, and I felt bad just leaving Ezra there. So I woke him up and told him we were on a late night egg run. (I can’t believe he fell for it—just _listen_ to the phrase “late night egg run.” Come on.) I was in the back, he was in the passenger seat, and Mary Ruth was driving. We were almost out of town and—

“And, uh, Abraham was coming back from a conference and stopped us halfway to say hi.

“He said how unusual it was for Mary Ruth to be running the egg truck this late, and Ezra realized what was going on. He started yelling for help.”

Leo cleared his throat, but his voice still sounded thick.

“I busted out of the back and ran into the woods. Didn’t know what happened to the others until—”

The weight of the soil above suddenly increased. Nico yelped as the pressure bent him over. It felt as though his back might break. His vision grayed and his stomach became white noise for a split second.

“Are you okay?” In the time it had taken Leo to say all this he’d dug to the point where he could almost stand up. Nico tried to keep two hands on the earth at all times, though strictly speaking he only needed one. He was so quiet that Leo seemed concerned he’d suffocated under the dirt, reassured only by his occasional nudges to Nico’s head and Nico’s own vague replying noises. He was crouching somewhere around Leo’s knees. The top was too narrow for him to stand fully. The coffin had almost totally filled with dirt, and the only empty space was where they were standing. The walls of their vertical tunnel were damp with the heat and the condensation of their breath.

Nico coughed to try and loosen his chest. “Do you hear that?”

A faint, muffled _pitter-patter._

“It’s raining. The—” Nico grabbed Leo’s leg for support. His hand was cold as ice and shaking like leaves. It had the texture of chalk on the surface but inside it was like when you sleep on a limb and you wake but the limb’s fallen asleep. The interior was the color of pitch. In stark daylight they might’ve been able to see grains of red clay through the flesh of his hands. He grimaced. “The ground at the top is packed tight.”

“We’ll make it out,” Leo said, though it sounded more like a prayer than a reassurance. “Does it hurt?”

It was hellish. Camp Gilead had already weakened Nico physically and psychically, and the blurry flashback just at the edge of his mind was straining to get free and wreak havoc on his faculties, making the task into a vice threatening to crush him. The sky, the ground’s vindictive brother, saturated the soil with what felt like liquid lead. A thousand hands seemed to press down on him, trying to force him through the floor and into the mantle of the earth.

His head ached. His leg pounded. But he stayed silent on the subject.

Nico adjusted grip on his lifeline. “Distract me. Tell me about the last time you saw Mary Ruth.”

Leo clammed up. “I—I don’t need to talk if it bothers you.”

“Leo,” Nico groaned. “I saw her.”

“No, you—”

“I _saw_ her,” he repeated.

The cascade of dirt paused for a second. “...Oh,” Leo said.

Nico rested his cheek on the wall. It was cold. Cold like his hand, which dug into, then through the same wall like so much gossamer. How could something be so cold in a place so hot?

Leo finally gulped, reached down, and gave Nico a pat on the head. Nico couldn’t see him, but the few times he’d seen Leo eat, his neck was skinny enough that swallowing looked like a whole production that they’d both gladly made fun of. Then he kept digging. “Uh… I’m sorry.” Nico didn’t know who he was apologizing to and didn’t ask.

Then he continued.

“It was just before I met Jason and Piper. Two years ago, homeless in Brooklyn. It was a bad time to be homeless, or in Brooklyn, for that matter—I was right in the middle of a big-ass blizzard. You’d be outside and it would be like a sheet of paper. I think I would’ve died if it weren’t for my powers.

“When things finally started thawing out, the East River cracked like gunshots. The noise kept waking me up at night. I didn’t mind that much. I couldn’t get good sleep anyway, since it’s New York City, and there’s creeps everywhere, but in the streets where there’s no doors between you and them, it’s all you think about. So it’s late at night, the river wakes me up again. I haven’t eaten. I’m holding some weed, so I go and try to sell it, even though I’ve been trying for a few days.

“Finally I find some bench with a guy willing to buy. Just as I hand him the pot, a second guy comes up behind me and holds a knife to my throat.

“He’s not willing to back down. He’s not gonna stop until I’m dead.

“I can’t burn him because I wasted most of my strength trying not to freeze to death. I can barely fight him because I’m starving. I think, ‘well, this is it. If anyone up there’s listening, I need a miracle to get out of this.’

“And—” Leo took a deep breath. “ —That’s when a girl’s arm brushed mine, right before she hit the ground.

“She died on impact. Smashed the bench to splinters. It was just red all over, and—you don’t realize how hot blood is until it’s boiling ice. She’d made such a loud crash that the neighbors were already calling the cops. Everyone panicked, me included, because with the weed, I’d probably get more jail time than them.

“The two guys run off. I start to run off, too, but then I actually look at the girl. Mary Ruth.

“I froze in my tracks, don’t know how long, but I finally came to my senses when I heard the sirens. So I ran to the nearest subway station, ducked a turnstile. And that was it.

“And… shit, I was hoping—” Thin mud rained down on Leo’s head. He coughed. “I was hoping it was just somebody who _looked_ like Mary Ruth, but in the station someone’s walking out of the bathroom, and he’s wiping his hands on his pants.”

Leo laughed—the faint sounds beating above them were now roaring loud and clear. Nico gritted his teeth and braced himself.

“I said, ‘Ezra—’” Leo said, and the rain burst through.

Nico sputtered. Leo gasped and struggled until the top of his body disappeared from Nico’s sight as he grasped desperately at the walls. The passage narrowed greatly at the top and his knees were entombed in mud. His own arms were too weak to overcome the suction as the water rose. This is it, his mind scrambled. This is how you’ll die.

A hand grabbed his wrist, and pulled.

Nico kicked, scraping the grave walls, and pushed to Leo’s pull. The surface was still sodden and hard-packed, pressing down on his ribs as his hands found the air. His head then came up through the stubborn mud. The air pierced his lungs.

Leo dragged him until his knees hit grass. When he released, Nico went limp on the ground. With an unceremonious thump, Leo did the same.

Finally Nico opened his eyes. Leo was covered in thick, pudding-like dirt, and the rust red of his own blood was caked about his midriff. Nico gently lifted his fingers to his own head, which still throbbed with pain, and found flakes of the stuff where the butt of a pistol had hit him. Absences peppered his body with the arrangement of bullet holes and the texture of spiderwebs. His ring finger went in his temple before he withdrew, hand fluttering in the air like a bit of confetti at the fourteenth birthday party he’d never had before falling to earth.

The ghosts of medical knowledge mumbled things about infection and exhaustion. But Nico waved them off as the rain washed away the soil.

Nico laughed. “Ha! A-ha-ha-ha!”

“Why’re you laughing?” Leo slurred.

“A-ha-ha-ha,” Nico sobbed.

Leo crawled to his side and slung an arm over him. Nico didn’t protest.

They would have to keep moving soon. But they were hugging in the pitch black and the rain because even though they were drenched, even though everything was so tragic, they were in the clean air and they were free.

And for now, that was all they needed to start uphill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Named after the passage where Lazarus rises from the grave. Heavily inspired by the boneyard scene in Nancy Farmer's House of the Scorpion, assigned to me in middle school and recently reread. I was just blown away by that part.
> 
> A character literally trying not to be crushed by the weight of death while confessing his life story, which metaphorically is crushing him with all the death he's seen? I was like, this is brilliant! I think I'll steal it. Of course I couldn't do it [i]quite[/i] like Farmer, since it's not like there's just bone pits lying around upstate New York. (If there were, my summer would have been way more interesting.)
> 
> Also, since House of the Scorpion is already a recounting of the main character's life, that character's monologue is not actually shown. It would be redundant. So situationally and structurally, this ended up drifting pretty far from its inspiration. It's a radical departure from how I usually write and I hope it got its point across.
> 
> Please sound off if you're still reading this! <3


	19. Into the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and then it goes to an epistle. :)))
> 
> SPOILERS but...
> 
> i actually killed harley in my 1st version of this chapter but then i was like, "nah, i don't want to write 10 chapters of these characters being sad about that one thing" and changed it to katie. so there's that

“Are we there yet?” one of the gorgons whined.

“We’ll get there when we get there!” Medusa snapped. Shitty family road trips are shitty; this goes doubly for monsters. The van began to veer off the road and was corrected by the horn blare of a passing car.

“Would it kill you to take off the sunglasses? It’s like, six in the afternoon, you can’t see the road!”

“Well, I _would_ , Euryale, but then the other drivers are going to turn to stone, and then we’ll have a totally different problem!”

They were all screaming over the rattle of a dozen-odd stone statues in the van’s back, all of which were frozen in expressions of shock, most of which bore Camp Half-Blood t-shirts. Medusa had lost her entire statue stock after being killed but she was replenishing very quickly. One man’s tragedy is another man’s Antiques Roadshow, y’know?

“Ooh, look!” cried Stheno. “There’s another one in the ditch!”

They pulled over to the side of the street; a pale and filthy teenage boy was lying face-down in the mud and tall grass. Medusa shook his arm. He didn’t respond. “Looks dead.”

“You can’t very well turn him to stone if he’s dead,” Euryale said unhelpfully.

“What are you talking about? I thought she just looked at people to do it.”

“They have to look _back_ , Stheno.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really, otherwise her kill count would be much higher.”

Medusa sniffed the boy curiously. “He certainly smells like death.”

“Well, we can’t just leave the body lying here.”

“So you’re saying we eat him?”

“What—no! What?”

Euryale threw her hands up. “Hey, why not? We’re already evil.”

“Not anymore!” Leo cried, bursting out of the tall grass with a strip of cloth tied over his eyes, spewing fire like a butthole on the Fourth of July. Gorgons, thankfully, are shockingly flammable, and the three poofed into golden dust with a final cry of “GODSDAMMIT, WE JUST GOT BACK HERE.”

Nico peeled himself from the mud as Leo checked the van. “Finally, some good luck,” Leo said. “They left the keys in the ignition.”

Leo hurried back to assist Nico, who was having considerable trouble moving. They were both weary after fighting their way across a decent portion of the state of New York. He tried to take Nico’s arm but his fingers passed through it like cold mist. “I swear to Hades, if I fall through the bottom of the car…” Nico muttered. It was a joke, but Leo still cringed at the thought.

The swelling in Leo’s fingers had gone down somewhat, and while still bruised, they had unstiffened enough to where he could comfortably grip the steering wheel. There was still dirt under his fingernails.

Leo paused and looked behind, past the backseat where Nico was sitting. “There’s bodies in the back.”

“I’m aware,” Nico grunted. There was a crackling as presumably he took the obwarzanek out of his pocket, the last of what had been given to them by Mrs. Szczepański a few days ago. “Are you hungry? It’s about to go stale.”

“Is it anyone we know?”

“There’s nothing we can do except drive them back to camp.”

“ _Dude._ ”

Nico sighed and closed his eyes. “If it makes you feel better, the rest of the Seven are alive right now, as are Reyna and Calypso.” He sounded strained. That put Leo on edge.

“...Right now?” Leo said as he turned the key. The engine started surprisingly well, despite the van itself showing the marks of many, many collisions. “Would it tire you too much to go into detail?”

Nico was in the act of lying down in the backseat. The return journey had taken far longer than expected, but Leo said no to dark magic. Whatever effect Camp Gilead had on Nico’s shadow travel still seemed to linger over him, and the exhaustion that had come of digging their way out of the grave had made his body scarcely more than swiss cheese—less than swiss cheese. Like a piece of wet newspaper. Leo was convinced that if he shadow travelled he’d be fucking dead. “This only takes me as much energy as it takes you to use your eyes,” he groaned. “I…”

Leo pulled his seat forward—begrudgingly acknowledging that Medusa was taller than him—and pulled onto the highway. “Yeah?”

“I have a weird feeling.”

Leo’s heart sank. “About?”

“About Jason.”

“Weird as in, he’s going to—gonna kick it, or—”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“It’s like…” Nico sat up again and pressed his pale cheek to the window. “There’s a distinct sense to it, and I have trouble describing it in terms people understand.”

“Oh, like football,” Leo said, and mentally smacked himself. Really? That’s the best you could come up with?

“Yes, exactly like football,” Nico deadpanned. “I make a home run into the end zone. The crowd cheers, and then the stadium explodes. But, really… picture it as being like light. Bright light is for people who are alive. Darkness is for people who are dead. Normally when someone is about to die, their light fades. But Jason’s—”

Leo looked in the rearview mirror. Nico was frowning deeply at his shoes. “What’s wrong with Jason?”

“Well, his light was strong before I went to Gilead, but over the past few days something odd’s happened. It’s… it’s flickering, for a lack of a better word.”

“Flickering.” Strangely Leo had a mental image of a broken TV screen. Maybe Nico needed to be unplugged and plugged back in. “So what does that mean? Is Jason just like, ‘LIFE! DEATH! LIFE! DEATH! LIFE! DEATH!’” he said, miming turning a light bulb on and off.

“That’s the thing, I have no idea what it means. I’ve never seen this before. Not on you, not on Octavian, not on _anyone_ . Your light didn’t totally ‘go out,’ so to speak, and it’s still stuck that way. Octavian’s went out but now it’s on again, which tells me that whatever resurrected him was different from what resurrected you. I suppose this could mean Jason’s getting killed and resurrected the same way as Octavian was over and over, and considering the speed at which that would have to be happening that can’t be right, but _I don’t know what else could be going on!_ ” Nico dropped his head in his hands.

“Are you tired?”

“ _Am_ I tired.”

“You sound tired.”

“Do you think,” Nico said, “Abraham really speaks to God?”

Leo scoffed. “What kind of question is that? ...Of course not.”

“Well, something certainly raised Octavian from the dead.”

“Maybe it’s not really Octavian. Maybe it’s a monster that looks like him.”

“Hades, I wish, but a monster would’ve killed us by now. Besides, did you notice that we were never attacked by monsters in Gilead? We were practically dogpiled as soon as we got out.”

“The eidolon.”

“Aside from that, and it died moments after we ran into it. And there’s the interference with my powers—my shadow travel and death sense were both messed up, but your powers were fine. It couldn’t be a general magic dampening effect. I think we need to consider a higher power at work.”

Leo shook his head. “No, no, no. If you’re telling me the big Y-H is real—”

“Just consider it. It would explain why my powers didn’t work and yours did.”

“—even if He was, I’ve felt more God behind an Arby’s than in Camp Gilead.”

“It would—I haven’t sat down and read that thing in a while, but I remember the Bible frowned pretty strongly on necromancy. Meanwhile God appeared as a burning bush, a pillar of fire, et cetera—”

“He also wasn’t real keen on gods other than Himself, so why are we still alive?”

“Uh… we’re allies of Rome. Rome played a large part in the spread of Christianity.” Leo rolled his eyes. Nico threw up his hands. “I don’t know, okay? I didn’t come up with too many details because I thought you’d already have thought of this.”

“Uh-uh. _No_.” Leo had wasted too many thoughts on Abraham’s trash already, and he’d been determined not to waste one more.

For the longest time after running away from Camp Gilead Leo had been beating himself up over leaving. _Did I do something wrong_ and _it’s not like the punishments were that bad_ and _this is God’s way of telling me to go back_ kept repeating in his head every time something bad happened to him all the way up until Wilderness School.

When he went over the side of the Grand Canyon it was like a switch on the side of the world had flipped. The world was not as Abraham had told him it was, and he was living proof. After all, the prerequisite to Gilead’s reality was the absence of all other gods.

Abraham being even slightly right made his stomach writhe.

“I understand that this concept is… difficult for several reasons, but we need to consider this from a purely neutral perspective.”

Leo squinted into the distance. “Oh man.”

“Greek and Roman gods coexist. Annabeth’s cousin is a Norse demigod. Percy’s met Egyptian magicians, so it’s—”

“Nico, you’re gonna want to sit up.”

As Nico did, Leo held his finger level with the plume of smoke coming from the horizon.

* * *

Ezra sat back and ground his fist into his bloodshot eye. Done. Finally done with paperwork for the night. He drew in a breath, held it hostage for a long moment before letting it hiss away. The hot, stale air ruffled both the papers on the intake desk and the pages next to it and he frowned. Carefully, he rearranged his hours of work, hands still blue from where his sweating fingertips had been pressed to the ink, and filed it away.

The printer was still chugging, the staples embedded in its side rattling. It hadn’t been repaired in years but aside from the noise it was doing great. Ezra picked up a slip of paper.

_Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham…_

Ezra set the paper back where it was. He leaned forward and listened. Truly listened. He heard the rattling staples, the shush of Leo’s army jacket shifting on his shoulders, the air conditioning kicking on and rustling the open Bible, his heart, his lungs, the creak in his neck as he moved his head.

God didn’t speak to him.

Of course, nobody ever expected to hear Him literally. It was a metaphor. If you literally heard God, something was wrong with you, said everyone, but who was everyone? Nancy? Teresa? Those poor unfortunate souls out in the cabins? Ezra could never be satisfied with the metaphorical.

Ezra opened his eyes and regarded the intake desk.

The counter rendered much of it invisible from the other side. Some tape and whiteout stained it. There was a Gilead standard King James Bible, a tiny mintbox of ibuprofen, and a nine millimeter handgun.

He leafed through the Bible. It used to be a shared Bible, passed between twelve people who each annotated it in their own pen color. He stilled on a passage in Leviticus: “For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach the LORD: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose…” He scratched his palm. Did Pam count in this metric? Ezra was never quite sure if she was telling the truth about being deaf or not. As far as he knew, deaf people couldn’t talk.

Ezra rolled an ibuprofen into his hand and it stuck awkwardly. He took it dry.

He kept leafing, telling himself he was going to find a less upsetting passage, and found himself stopping in the Old Testament again. “For every one that curseth his father shall be surely put to death.” Now Leo did very much do that. Maybe “death” was a bit harsh, but… no. This should’ve assuaged his guilt. So why didn’t it?

Ezra drummed his fingers on the desk and went to close the Bible.

“A bastard shall not—”

Ezra paused. He opened the book again.

“A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.”

“Hi Ezra, I know it’s late but I was taking the trash out and I—”

Pam paused in the doorway, holding a brown paper bag and staring at Ezra dumbfounded. Ezra hastily dropped the gun into a drawer and closed it before freezing himself in place as if nothing had happened.

“...What—”

“Nothing. It was nothing,” Ezra said, slamming the Bible shut. “What’s in the bag?”

Pam clumsily handed him the bag, stammering out, “I was, uh, cleaning out the trash bins in the staff building and I saw that box sticking out of the top—”

“Oh my god.”

_FIRST RESPONSE PREGNANCY EARLY RESULT PREGNANCY TEST CAN TELL YOU 6 DAYS SOONER_

* * *

The field was full of screaming and the sounds of shifting rubble.

“Remember START, everybody! Green tags, you’re clear, these orders are for you too! I need y’all to check breathing, pulse, and mental status. If any of those things fall through you tag them red and give nectar immediate—!” Kayla broke into a marble dust-coughing fit directly into the bullhorn, which didn’t make anyone feel better.

Piper momentarily paused her frantic charmspeak “stay alive stay alive stay alive” mantra and put her ear to Will’s breath or lack thereof and instead of futilely pumping she balled her hand into a fist and struck his sternum with all her might.

Will inhaled suddenly and sharply, eyes flying open. “Ah!”

“Hey,” Piper said. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Will Solace,” he gasped.

“You know who’s president?”

“I wish I didn’t.”

“You think you can walk?”

He grimaced. “Fractured femur, but I’ll live.”

“Yellow tag!” An antsy satyr with the remains of green paper sticking out of his mouth scurried to her side and fastened a canary yellow tag around Will’s wrist.

The satyr went to leave, then suddenly turned around to Piper again. “Are you sure you don’t need a yellow tag yourself?”

“If I’m walking, I don’t need a yellow tag.”

The satyr almost said something, but was cut off by another cry of “We need a tag!” and leapt away.

Major medical operations were moved to the archery field, the largest open space as far away from the cabins as possible, just in case the rest started falling down too. Piper joined the team salvaging nectar from the infirmary—nectar being most vital, since it could be poured down a patient’s throat regardless of consciousness—before it burst into flames and hurried there.

When the Big House initially exploded, its main casualties were camp counselors and intercamp delegates. No one else was inside, not even Chiron, who’d left on business, because it was a closed meeting. Injuries sustained by those few outside the building were caused by flying debris. However, the explosion caused a crowd to gather to close in around the Big House, putting them within arm’s length of Cabin One. The archery field was mostly crush injuries and blunt force trauma from the falling marble, limbs going blue and purple, black tags with brains dashed across the rocks waiting to be covered with sheets. Piper tried not to look too hard at the black tags but she saw Malcolm, and Juniper, and Katie, and more Hunters than there were fingers on her hands, and—

Piper said, “Wait, is she saying something?”

She meant Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who she didn’t recognize at first. At first glance, she just looked like a screaming, thrashing mass of red black and purple passing her on a gurney.

“We found her like this,” Calypso said, holding one end of the gurney. “She wasn’t anywhere near the blast.”

Rachel’s eyes were wide open and pouring green smoke but even so something was wrong, it wasn’t coming out in plumes, but smokesignal sputterpuffs.

“Light—promise—three—father—hand—brother—fire—death! Death! Death—!”

Every word was clipped at the end like they were being cut down with gunfire. Furthermore, it wasn’t just the Oracle’s voice—under the crackling words Piper could hear an inarticulate shouting that at first had drowned out the scrambled prophecy, a full-body scream as loud as Rachel could physically make it, coming up from her belly and going on until she ran out of breath and did it again. “Rachel! Rachel, are you okay?” Piper said, even though the answer to that one was obvious.

Rachel didn’t seem capable of making her mouth move in any way other than the way it was moving now, but was conscious, if in pain.

She gave a thumbs down before pointing at Piper’s face—and yes, it was bad, but the nerve endings were fucked, so besides the edge of it itching occasionally it didn’t hurt. “It’s fine, it’s fine,” Piper blabbered. Rachel smacked her arm a few times. “What? What is it?”

The Oracle was like a scratched CD at this point. “De—ath—d—eath—d—”

Rachel pointed at the horizon. Piper’s jaw dropped.

“Leo?”

* * *

Ezra walked into the bathroom with a determined look in his eye. He walked out with a wet pregnancy test in his hand. “Found it!”

Pam frowned. “How are you casually holding the end she peed on?”

“Ugh!” He dropped it in disgust with a click of hardwood. “Why would she do that?”

Pam gingerly picked it up. “How do you not know how this works by now?” She held up the double-line stick. “Positive.”

Ezra’s face split into a smile. “That’s great!”

“...I’m sorry?” Pam said, adjusting her hearing aids.

“No, this is—this is great, Teresa and Abraham have been trying to get pregnant for like, decades, and this is such good timing! The camp’s hitting its stride now, the kid won’t have to grow up alone or anything. Plus Teresa’s hit forty and this probably happened right before her clock ran out! Wow!”

Pam was very much not smiling, but Ezra’s vision was being a bit selective at the moment. He ran out the door and barely stopped himself before hitting Teresa headlong.

“Congratulations, Mom, I just saw the test!”

He dashed down the hall. Pam ducked under Teresa’s elbow and ran after.

Teresa, baffled and offended, looked around.

“‘Mom?’”

* * *

Nico became an infirmary assistant after the Giant War.

The infirmary was very stuffy and chaotic and hard to wrap one’s head around. It was perfect for somebody who had too many thoughts swirling around. Worrying, fearful thoughts. And sometimes, if he got lucky, he’d get to stand in a spot near the window, and there would be a warm sunbeam.

He slid into a different headspace here. The kids still weren’t used to his presence and flinched away when he was nearby. Maybe they never would get used to him. But y’know, even if they never stopped thinking he was a freak, they’d eventually get tired of flinching.

At Camp Half-Blood, you get some interesting injuries. You gotta love a summer camp with swords, spears, and a lava pit. There was that time with the knife that got so close to that kid’s heart it wobbled with every heartbeat. There was the thing with the twenty-foot long tapeworm. The penis bottle incident.

But nothing like this.

They had to park half a mile out from the entrance because the chaos and visibility was so bad. Leo couldn’t push the van any further without running someone over. “We need to walk,” Leo said, pointing obviously at the windshield, which looked like a moving cave painting, the gray haze and the dark silhouettes running around the vehicle.

Nico took him by the hand, pushing solidity into each finger, and let Leo lead them through the fog—dust, Nico realized, pulling his shirt up over his nose, Leo quickly following.

“Can’t you light a fire through this?”

“It’s not mist, it’s particulate; the light’ll just bounce off of it.”

So they couldn’t see (the air was just vaporous rock), they could barely hear for the shouting (which hadn’t penetrated their little van bubble and made the vertigo that much worse), and they might as well had been not breathing at all (and it was hot). And Leo was leading him forward like a balloon on his wrist, and strangely, that didn’t bother him as much as it normally would have.

When they left the dust, they were white as ghosts, but the real dead were underfoot.

Nico vomited immediately. If he’d had trouble keeping it together before, the sudden onslaught of gore shattered his tenuous composure. The obwarzanek splattered the ground inches from someone’s head and most likely ruined another available spot for the injured.

Leo grabbed him by the collar and kept him from falling face first into his own bile. “Nico, Nico—”

“I didn’t feel it,” Nico gasped. “I didn’t feel any of it, not until I was already…”

Something was wrong and it wasn’t just Jason. The faint ache in his bones that usually began days or weeks before an actual death was suddenly compressed into seconds and it was blinding, even for him.

The cries of “Nico, Nico, Nico” mixed with the ringing in his ears. When he came back he realized it was no longer Leo saying that. “Piper,” Nico said, “what happened, are you okay?”

Piper wasn’t okay. A good quarter of her face looked like overdone pizza, jaw to cheekbone. “Me? How did you get here? Actually, never mind that, just—” Piper, overcome with emotion, flung her arms around them both.

Nico, after overcoming the initial shock, accepted the hug.

It didn’t last long. A chorus of thumps rang out across the field. There was a moment of quiet.

They slowly looked up. The children of Apollo who had been shouting directions and orders were going quiet and slumping into the grass. The walking wounded looked around in horror and confusion for upright blonde heads but saw none.

Nico looked down—at the blue, blue eyes of his ex-boyfriend.

At the hand gripping his ankle.

At the voice beneath him, the voices all around them, Will and Kayla and Rachel and the Oracle, speaking with one voice:

“HELP.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just graduated so updates will be faster now. possibly. maybe. assuming i can mentally pull it together
> 
> btw all bible verses were reffed from this article
> 
> https://www.ranker.com/list/top-20-bible-passages-to-use-against-fundamentalists/ivana-wynn
> 
> jsyk that same article is basically a cheat sheet for almost every biblical theme in inferno.


	20. Epistles IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epistles 4: The Bad One

(Transcript of audio recorded on Daedalus’s laptop, timestamped several hours prior to the Camp Half-Blood bombing.)

[ _ Sound of water running, Iris Message ringing. Ringing stops, echoing dripping from the other end of the line. _ ]

**MICHAEL:** What the...

**ANNABETH:** Hello? Michael Kahale?

**MICHAEL:** [ _ softly _ ] Oh, shit!

[ _ Unsheathing sword. _ ]

**ANNABETH:** Wait, wait! It’s just a hologram. It’s fine.

[ _ Quiet smack, probably palm hitting forehead. _ ]

**MICHAEL:** Sorry. I’m still… not used to these things, and the lack of sleep isn’t helping.

**ANNABETH:** It takes a while.

**MICHAEL:** State your business, then.

**ANNABETH:** I have some questions about a woman you may have met—Molly Sweetwater.

**MICHAEL:** Mrs. Oswald? What’s this about?

**ANNABETH:** A series of papers she published in the late 2000s.

**MICHAEL:** Prepare to be disappointed, then. I didn’t know her that well.

**ANNABETH:** I’m aware, but I’ve already checked other sources. Dr. Sweetwater’s original notes were either destroyed or squirreled off without a hint as to where they are and her family’s not exactly easy to get ahold of.

**MICHAEL:** Out of curiosity, what happened when you tried to call them?

**ANNABETH:** Maxima must have worked out a way to block the signal. The Julius Oswalds did pick up, but Senior would only speak through his lawyer and Junior told me to “go fuck myself.”

**MICHAEL:** And Augur Lucretia was being avoidant.

**ANNABETH:** Yes, she said Dr. Sweetwater never discussed it with her.

**MICHAEL:** Doubtful. Molly was very vocal about her findings. It ended up on the news a few times.

**ANNABETH:** So why isn’t there any— 

**MICHAEL:** The Oswald family scrubbed them off the face of the earth after she died.

**ANNABETH:** What?

**MICHAEL:** You think Molly was great, and I’ll give credit where it’s due, but you have to understand. These people see the world as meat. What Molly was describing was a world where the Roman patricians were just big fish in a small bowl, and in that situation, you don’t want to use words like “ocean,” if you know what I mean.

**ANNABETH:** I see.

[ _ Dripping. _ ]

**ANNABETH:** Where  _ are _ you right now?

**MICHAEL:** ...A service tunnel.

**ANNABETH:** A suspiciously leaky service tunnel.

**MICHAEL:** Yes, the national infrastructure’s been terrible lately.

[ _ One minute of silence, dripping. _ ]

**ANNABETH:** Fine, don’t tell me. But one more thing. You said you’re not getting enough sleep?

**MICHAEL:** Yes. Why?

**ANNABETH:** Hazel’s been having strange nightmares. Did you have one?

**MICHAEL:** I don’t remember it very well, but... I was on a hill with a crucifix—

> **FLEECY:** Hi, this is a message from Rainbow Organic Foods  & Lifestyles! Based on conversation markers, it seems some sensitive information is being discussed. Be aware that this call is being monitored for your safety and customer satisfaction.

**MICHAEL:** Is that normal?

**ANNABETH:** Uh, no. What is this? Are we in trouble?

> **FLEECY:** Nah, you’re not in trouble! We’ve just been given instructions to watch for calls that involve hills, crosses, or boats. Don’t worry, we don’t share any of this with HR.

**ANNABETH:** Who gave you these instructions?

[ _ Indistinct whispering. _ ]

> **FLEECY:** Hmmm, I’m not at liberty to say.

**MICHAEL:** You know what, I’ll just go. You caught me in the middle of something, anyway.

**ANNABETH:** Wait—

[ _ Call drops _ .]

* * *

(Partial transcript of  _ Unshackled! _ radio drama episode.)

Program #2998 - Aired in 2010 | Pop-out in Player

Leo Valdez Classic

Tags: Adoption, Drugs, Suicide

Broken families confuse children. Leo buried his anger when his father walked out and his confusion became destructive. Don’t miss this timely true story, another dramatization on UNSHACKLED!

(…)

“LEO,” AS NARRATOR: A few years after my mother died, I was taken in by Abraham, a pastor running a Christian reform camp. He did his best to support me, but despite his best efforts, I still came into contact with some unsavory characters…

> ( _ Laughing and clinking bottles _ .)
> 
> “LEO”: Hey, Mary Ruth, what’s going on in here?
> 
> MARY RUTH: Just a little New Year’s celebration! C’mon, join us!
> 
> “LEO”: I don’t know, we’re going to get in trouble…
> 
> MARY RUTH: No, but it’s not just booze back here—I got ahold of some high-grade opium. The real medical stuff!
> 
> “LEO”: Well… maybe a little bit.

“LEO,” AS NARRATOR: The opium was awful, and I couldn’t see why Mary Ruth liked it. But she did, and her doses only increased, as did her rebellion. To make matters worse, much of the staff I had close relationships with were branching out into other camps to spread the Good Word. As time went on, fewer and fewer people could help me break her spiral...

> ABRAHAM: Where’s Mary Ruth?
> 
> “LEO”: I don’t know! She should’ve started leading hymns, like, thirty minutes ago.
> 
> ( _ Door opening. _ )
> 
> MARY RUTH, SLURRING: Heeey, kids. Who’s ready to have some fun?
> 
> ABRAHAM: Oh my goodness.
> 
> “LEO”: Mary, are you high?
> 
> MARY RUTH: I’m high on the Lord, babay! Let’s get this party started!
> 
> ABRAHAM: No, no, no. You get out of here and pray about this…  _ problem. _
> 
> ( _ Scuffle _ .)
> 
> MARY RUTH: Hey! Get your hands off me, you ugly little Funko pop! You’ll hear from my lawyer about this!

* * *

(From the Society of Biblical Literature’s article, [“Kingship in the Hebrew Bible.”](https://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/TBv3i3_PowerKingship.pdf))

...Practically without exception, where there were cities, there were kings. Kings made great achievements by organizing and controlling resources (including manpower) on a large scale. Kings often built temples, fortified cities, and mustered armies for war.

It is easy to see how a king, the facilitator of all this beneficial work, might become a figure of national pride and love, as a great builder or a warrior. For instance, a common title applied to ancient Near Eastern kings is “shepherd of the people,” which shows how they were seen as essential for the wellbeing of their “meek” subjects.

Kings in the ancient Near East were often looked on as superhuman, as more than mere mortals, since they accomplished grand projects that no mere mortal could carry out on his own. In ancient Egypt, the pharaoh often bore the title “the son of Ra,” the sun-god. Statements like these give divine approval to a king’s exercise of absolute authority over a nation.

In many ways, the Hebrew Bible presents kings according to this ancient Near Eastern model. Saul is mighty warrior, Solomon a great builder. The king’s role as judge, and as the advocate of the helpless, is described enthusiastically in Psalm 72.

There, it is clear that his struggle for “justice” (Hebrew  _ mispat _ ) ensures more than just lawfulness; it brings peace and fertility, habitability, to his land.

* * *

(Online news outlet.)

**Massive backlash over dismissal of crisis pregnancy center lawsuit**

A petition calling for the shutdown of Gilead Ministries Women’s Health Center in Manhattan has garnered more than 14,000 signatures in a backlash over perceived leniency in the dismissal of the case against it.

Hill v. Gilead Ministries was dismissed last week. The plaintiff, nineteen year old Mary Ruth Hill, was suing the crisis pregnancy center sponsored by her adoptive father, Fr. Abraham Hill. Her claim was that the clinic was deceiving women seeking abortions into carrying to term. Mary Ruth Hill further claimed that the resultant infants were fast-tracked into adoption by Christian families. Apparent victims of this fraud included minors, rape victims, and non-English speakers.

The plaintiff was joined by a small group of eleven people in a telling display of the division wrought by the case. Her own adoptive brother, Ezra Hill, had offered testimony during the trial that directly contradicted the plaintiff’s allegations.

Abraham Hill maintained his innocence throughout the trial, stating that the allegations were “outlandish” and that his daughter was a “defiant teenager who didn’t appreciate [his] attempts to impose strict rules for [his] children.”

However, several weeks ago, Mary Ruth Hill committed suicide by leaping off the roof of a building. In the absence of a successor to the lawsuit, the court decided to dismiss the lawsuit, stating that Hill seemed a “good Christian man” and would need the following days to grieve and prepare a funeral for his daughter.

Gilead Ministries and the Hill family could not be reached for comment at this time.

* * *

(Tacked to Mnemosyne cabin cork board. Front:)

Missing yesterday? The past seems just a little bit out of reach?

NEVER FEAR! MNEMOSYNE NOSTALGIA CANDLES™ ARE FINALLY HERE!

Tap into the GLORIOUS POWER of the OLFACTORY NERVE to remember what’s been forgotten!

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q: How does this work?

A: Only the most powerful memory-wiping magic can erase the memory of a smell! If you think of each memory as an iceberg, the smell of the memory is the tiny tip sticking out of the top. We hone in on and distill the specific memory smell, which we then apply to a magic Nostalgia Candle™.

Q: Why don’t you have any pre-packaged candles?

A: Because of how memory magic works, each candle has to be specific to the person to invoke the desired memory. The smell of fresh grass may remind one person of childhood memories and remind another of recent trauma. To avoid any unfortunate incidents, Nostalgia Candles™ are order only.

Q: Will you get to look at my memories when you’re making the candle?

A: Nope! The process of extraction only allows us to get the smell, not the associated memory. The memory’s all in you.

Q: What will it cost?

A: Everything. ...Nah we’re kidding it’s like 8 bucks.

(Back:)

Customer: Jason Grace

Order #: 112

Top note: Tequila, Snow, Musk

Middle note: Chocolate, Metal, Sea Salt

Base note: Stone, Sulfur, Blood

IN TRANSIT.

Notes: Will asked me for this candle before I sent it out. I explained that it’s not gonna do anything for him, but he insisted he try anyway, because he was worried about Jason or something. Duh, he got disappointed, but Will rarely butts in on the candles. Especially not when they’ve got somebody’s whole childhood in it.

Whoever’s moving this thing... hang onto it tight, because there’s gotta be something important in there.

* * *

(Patient files.)

**The Gilead Ministries Women’s Clinic**

Prenatal Questionnaire

**Patient Name:** Roksana Szczepański

(...)

Religion: Święty Tomasz

Hospital plan to deliver at: No deliver, poronienie 

(Added note: “Misspelling of ‘Presbyterian.”)

Father of baby: Apolinary Kowalski

(Father’s information struck out.)

**Previous Pregnancies**

(Entire section struck out.)

**Current Pregnancy**

(...)

  1. Was this pregnancy unplanned? **YES** /NO



> Have you ever tried but couldn’t get pregnant for over one year?  **YES** /NO
> 
> Are you or the baby’s father unhappy about this pregnancy?  **YES** /NO

(...)

  1. List any medications you have taken since your last menstrual period. Yes
  2. Please list any problems concerning your pregnancy or general health you would like to discuss:



> I just move to America, my pay only support me, no one else. I can not feed a child. He may be eaten. The creatures would like to eat me, just to get to him. They knock on my window at night, say “Roksana, Roksana let us in so we can eat the boy in your belly.” This is no life for a child. Please, stop this.

**The Gilead Ministries Women’s Clinic**

**Care Agreement**

_ By signing below, I understand and give my full consent to Gilead Ministries to: _

 

  * __plan my child’s care and treatment, including other professionals and facilities that contribute to my care.__


  * _communicate with other professionals who contribute to my care._


  * _evaluate care quality and professional competence._


  * _supplying diagnostic and procedural information to a third party for the processing of bills related to my service._


  * _release my child to social services upon his/her birth._



 

ROKSANA SZCZEPAŃSKI

Signature

(Handwritten at bottom of page.)

> Hey, Papa Ham—
> 
> I’m sending this form to you because Mrs. Szczepanski is checking a lot of boxes. I couldn’t get much detail out of her since she barely speaks a lick of English, but given the lack of info on the father and the talk of “creatures” out her window I’d say she’s worth looking into.
> 
> Also, either her baby daddy has the coolest name ever, or she’s lying. “Kowalski” is the Polish “John Doe,” and I don’t have to explain why “Apolinary” raised some flags.
> 
> Not totally certain whether this one’s going to be a boy or a girl—Szczepanski seems confident it’s a boy but when I asked what gender test kit she used she looked at me like I had two heads. I don’t know. Maybe she did some Polish folk thing. So if we’re both right and he pops out speaking Latin, this one is lined up to be Ezra.
> 
> Go ahead and draw up the papers. It’s gonna be like taking candy from a baby.

—Genesis Hill

* * *

**PRONOUNCEMENT OF DEATH**

Events prior to patient’s death:

Called to bedside at 1400 for unresponsive and pulseless patient, Percy Jackson. No respirations. Absent heart sounds and breath sounds. No pulses palpable in carotid and femoral arteries. Pupils fixed and dilated. CPR attempted. Patient pronounced dead at 1430.

Date/Time of death: 6/26/12, 1430

Cause:

> Immediate: Heart failure, minutes
> 
> Traumatic brain injury, days
> 
> Pneumothorax, days
> 
> Underlying cause: Unknown

Manner/Autopsy: Pending

Events related to death:

> Was code called: yes
> 
> Coroner notified: yes
> 
> Family notified: yes
> 
> Autopsy requested: yes
> 
> Death certificate completed: no

Resuscitation: CPR, epinephrine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unshackled! is a real radio drama I heard while in the car with my dad. Obviously that's not really Leo who submitted his "true story." Whoever did submit that was embellishing just a smidge.
> 
> Article is real, what's been shown here is relevant excerpts. Link takes you to the full article.
> 
> The defendant being a "good Christian man" was really used as a reason, by a judge, to be lenient. Link to that, warning for rape and child abuse. https://twentytwowords.com/judge-gives-rapist-pastor-lenient-sentence-hes-good-christian/
> 
> Mnemosyne. More worldbuilding odds and ends. Based off that line of Homesick Scented Candles, and also the glorious power of the olfactory nerve.
> 
> Mrs. Szczepanski's tragedy would have always played out the way it would. However, recent events in my state have caused me to take a different approach to the telling of it. Presented here: evil, at its front lines.
> 
> Did it seem like I was pulling punches in the last chapter with Harley? 'Cause I'm not. I am so not.


End file.
